“This is for you, little priestess,” he said, gently. “As much wealth as the world has ever seen – as long as you help me.”
She looked up from the disc in her hand.
In the centre of the chamber stood a young man, rigid and silent. His back was to the door and the light reflected oddly from his skin. Scattered haphazardly about him were other, much larger, shapes of metal, utterly nonsensical. They were stained and dirty, some of them had powdery brown rot growing across their edges. The dark, liquid splotches had spread onto the floor, where she could see discarded cloths, oddly shaped tools, unfamiliar liquid containers. At the room’s far wall, one long, low shape was covered by a waxed calico sheet.
There was no sign of the owner of the voice.
The chamber smelled strange. Blood, metal – and a tongue-tang of something she didn’t recognise, something that tasted... wrong.
When Maugrim touched her shoulder, she lifted the hem of her skirts and picked her way across the floor.
The young man didn’t move.
As she came closer, she slowed, stopped, stared.
He had no skin, no hair. Rather than flesh, he was a sculpture of carefully shaped metal plates. Over his skull, across his face, down the strong lines of his body, he wore an exquisitely detailed carapace, intricate and beautiful, metal fused to him as if he were a saga golem.
The work was not the same as the metal on the floor. It was Kartian – crafted with only the extraordinary detail that the mountains’ artisans could create. Raised and trained in all but absolute darkness, they had a sense of touch no Grasslander could match.
“He can’t hurt you, love.” Maugrim’s reassurance let her step closer.
Closer still.
Then she stopped, horror crawling across her skin.
Under the plates, his skinless muscle was raw, red flesh blistering, bubbling through the cracks. She could see searing torment in every line of his being, feel a silent scream that came from his twisted stance, his fast, shallow breath. His eyes – eyelids plated like everywhere else – were closed, but behind them, he twitched visions of agony.
His lips were sealed with a large, single plate. The skinned muscle of his face was torn where he’d tried to scream.
Oh, Goddess...
Black scabs split like lava, never healing, leaking trickles of red and yellow suffering. There was a caked pool around his feet. Even as she watched, a fresh swell of blisters erupted, rippling across one cheekbone. They oozed, swelled, burst, subsided. The plates shifted. She heard him whimper between lips that would never move again.
And it spread, flowed down his face and throat in a caress of anguish. Under his plating, his flayed body boiled as if he were being cooked alive.
Hand over her mouth, denying tears of revulsion, she understood he was trying to scab and heal – and couldn’t. He was one, vast, conscious wound. Maugrim had replaced his skin with pure pain.
There was a smile engraved on the plate that sealed his mouth.
They keep dying.
“Nononononono...” Her denial was unconscious, she was shaking, backing away. Every healer’s instinct she had told her to do one thing.
A heavy, ringed hand landed on her shoulder.
“No time for cold feet, love, he needs you – and soon.” The hand was warm, it steadied her. “I get the empathy thing, you feel his pain and you want to help. I’m telling you, you can. He’s a prototype, strong; a fusing of flesh and metal into the perfect warrior, the perfect conductor. Amethea.” She turned to stare at him as he used her name. “I believe in what I’m doing, I believe in you. Heal him. Complete the fusion. If you do, we can make the world a new and better place.”
The world’s fine... isn’t she?
The thought was tiny, lost under the potence of Maugrim’s passion and vision. What was one soul in pain against his belief? She ached to please him, to win his approval and earn his touch. Almost without realising, she yearned towards him and he smiled at her, igniting her blood in a flash of pure, physical hunger...
He turned away.
The young man’s eyes flicked open. Cool, grey. He couldn’t – or didn’t dare – move, but his gaze caught Amethea’s and his plea needed no words. Her heart convulsed in her chest, she swallowed tears. She couldn’t leave him like this... it was pure horror, way beyond Heal and Harm, beyond the ethics of the hospice that had raised her. Somewhere in her soul settled flakes of revulsion.
But – !
Maugrim pushed a dirty fingernail under one of the plates buried in the blistered, skinless mess of the young man’s face and tore it free. Blood welled in the hole, then ran down the myriad cracks to his jaw.
Under the horrific metal smile, his upper lip tried to curl, tugging bloodily at his bared muscle. His look was pure insolence – skinned alive he may be, but he was still fighting.
“This is crazed,” Amethea said softly. She was torn, she ached to help. Words tumbled from her. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t fix this. His skin can’t heal. You have to take them off. And... I don’t know how he’s even alive, blood loss, shock...” She heard herself sob. “How did you do this? It’s madness – how did you – ?”
“I call it ‘magic’,” Maugrim said quietly. He held the tiny metal scale out to her but she shrank back. “A little psychology, a little craftsmanship, a little luck.” He chuckled, took her wrist, pressed the plate into the skin of her palm. “This world has forgotten many things, little priestess, but they can be found – the elements and the Powerflux can be awakened. And then they can be channelled and moulded; a new might wrought from power that’s vast and ancient and screaming for release.” His voice thrummed with heat. “And that power is mine, it was given to me. It lives in my skin, in my very heart.” She blinked at him, not really understanding but carried by the force of his belief. “Look, ’Thea, this one’s a fighter. Pain, loss, terror, defiance – they’re teaching him strength, perception. He should be dead, but I can channel the very Powerflux through his flesh, just as I can channel it through myself, through you – down here, the elements are alive.” For a moment, they were eyes on eyes, then Maugrim closed her fingers over the metal. “You’ll heal him, sweetheart. A fusion of flesh and metal – a new creature that will save your world, that will bring to light the lore you have left to rot. You know you have to!”
Firelight. Scorching. Stone blackening. Her home was burning. But she was freed – from the sheltered life of the hospice and its rules and its ethics and its litanies and its moral restrictions. Her past crumbled. For the first time, she was free to make her own choice.
Maugrim had freed her.
The young man watched them, his grey eyes an overspill of plea, pain and defiance. She opened her hand and looked down at the metal.
We can make this world a new and better place.
As she surrendered, the young man slumped, almost imperceptibly, his moment of hope burned away. I’m sorry, she mouthed at him, helplessly, I’m sorry.
Beside her, she felt Maugrim glow, expand. As the young man watched, he slid a hand round the back of her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her with a passion and skill that burned everything else away. Impossibly pliant, she wrapped herself around him, lost herself to his touch, his mouth, his hands.
The grey eyes of Maugrim’s victim watched them as they tumbled to the bloodstained floor.
7: MYTH
VANKSRAAT