Why did I never say anything at the time?
In the afternoon sunlight, which spilled through a large circular window on the top floor of Factory 54, the group took the Okun’s dark, glossy exoskeleton out of storage and laid it out across the workbench.
First they separated it into several large sections, sifted through the pieces, deciding which section to concentrate on, before settling upon one of the breastplates.
‘It has to be this,’ Jeza said. ‘It’ll sit over people’s most vital areas. .’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Coren smirked, grabbing his crotch as if to hammer the point home.
‘Idiot,’ Jeza sighed. Then, to the others, ‘It’ll sit over the major organs: the heart, the lungs, the parts that can’t be repaired on the battlefield.’
Jeza lit several lanterns while Coren and Diggsy began to assemble the relics and tools. She fetched the notebooks from Lim’s unused room and, for the next hour, they began to work through pages and pages of his detailed instructions, most of them simply on how to operate the relics.
‘You OK?’ Diggsy asked. ‘You look pretty upset.’
‘I’m just concentrating,’ she replied. Had Lim’s death really affected her this much? It was a strange process, following his words; it was like having him there and alive once again, but he was dead — she had to keep reminding herself. I have to let him go.
Two relics the size of industrial equipment were dragged to sit either side of the breastplate specimen. The relics were called Haldorors, ‘true of word’ devices — they translated materials and retranslated them — or, in some cases, replicated them, in whatever shape or form was desired by the person setting the relics. The units, almost as tall as Jeza, were crafted from copper and silver, and possessed intricate ancient lettering that none of them had ever seen in a book, let alone understood.
Jeza made tweaks to the devices according to Lim’s notes on other creatures, moving the second of them about two armspans further down the workbench, so they were no longer opposite each other. She altered the frequencies and the measurements on the sixteen extra dials they had built into it, mainly by trial and error.
The relic was activated by placing a brass cylinder the size of her arm into the slot at the back, a process that was not immune to Coren’s crude innuendo. Diggsy switched on the second device and they all watched as a web of purple light spread out across the exoskeleton and hovered in the air above. The little crackles of energy never ceased to impress her; they signified ancient knowledge being reused, a line that spanned tens of thousands of years. No one spoke during the process, they were too focused.
Exactly as Lim’s theory described, a second replica of the breastplate began to fade into existence alongside. It finally materialized whole, in its own separate web of purple light, and when they were quite sure the process had finished, Jeza shut off one device, Diggsy the other, and soon all that was left was a dull hum, the faint smell of charred leather and a little smoke as if someone had blown out a match.
Jeza and Coren moved over to the cloned piece and inspected it, waiting for the thin, pale-blue smoke to dissipate. Coren prodded it, first with a metal rod to see if it was genuine, if it was physically there and not some illusion; then when he was more confident, he jabbed it with his finger. ‘Still warm,’ he said, and waited a moment longer while Diggsy and Pilli dragged the two Haldorors out of the way and against the wall.
Eventually, Coren picked up the original breastplate in one hand and the newly ‘translated’ one in his other. The others watched him, waiting. He moved them this way and that and wafted them around in the air, smiling. ‘Same light weight, same feel.’
‘Guess Lim’s tricks never fail to work,’ Diggsy said.
‘Is this what we want to show the military?’ Coren asked. He placed the breastplates back down while everyone turned to Jeza. They waited for her to speak, a new phenomenon for her, and she had to admit not entirely unpleasant.
‘We need to move our perceived roles on from spurious cultists — and in fact a bit of a motley crew to boot — to something more professional and businesslike. To most laymen, we might as well be casting runes or muttering dark spells.’
‘Go on. .’ Diggsy urged.
‘Now we know we can do this,’ she continued, ‘we should try to take things further, to show them what we think a more complete piece of soldier’s armour might look like. I think we should try our best to show the finished item. First we write to that albino commander. Get him here, see if he’s interested in the concept. Now’s the time. Later when we have refined this and he sees what we can sell him, he’ll have no trouble opening the Empire’s coffers.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ Coren said, and slapped her on the back.
Diggsy gave her a warm smile and placed his arm around her in that casual, cool way of his, and she couldn’t help but notice Pilli turning away now to fiddle with something on the workbench.
FIVE
She was back in Villjamur, back with Rika.
The warm sunlight falling through her opulent curtains was enough to tell her that this wasn’t quite real, though she didn’t know why. Bright coloured wall hangings and bed sheets, all the books she could wish for, trinkets and toys littered the floor. Everything seemed so pristine. Too pristine. As ever, there was frantic activity outside their bedroom door, which she took to be something to do with her father or his entourage.
Sometimes, when she heard such noises, she would close her eyes and hope that he’d come in — if just for a moment — to see how she and her sister were getting on, what they were up to, how they were feeling. It rarely happened, though. And yet. . now she thought of it, Rika wasn’t actually there. Her bed was a mess, so she had obviously been around recently, but she couldn’t see her anywhere. Eir called out; no reply came. She was utterly alone.
Sighing, Eir stretched fully, pushed herself up, out of bed, and walked to the windows, her legs feeling heavy. The whole movement seemed such an effort. This was the second time she realized something wasn’t right: her black hair was much shorter than before.
Pulling back the curtains, light flooded the room, and she squinted to see the rooftops of Villjamur. Always mesmerizing, always awe-inspiring, she could look down on that city a thousand times and never become complacent with its complex, labyrinthine layout. Each time she looked over the many levels of the city, over the winding rows and dreamlike spires sometimes lost in the mist, her imagination would flare happily.
A garuda flew by, drifting in an arc over the city — no, it had turned and was heading towards her. The bird-soldier glided in, his vast wings extended, his bronze armour glimmering in the morning sunlight. It swooped to her window and, with a thud, gripped the window frame to one side.
He had a panicked look on his face. He tried to sign something to her with his one free hand but she couldn’t understand him.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, trying to climb up to open the window.
But it wasn’t any good.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked again. ‘What’s wrong?’
A jab to her ribs lifted her from the dream. She opened her eyes in a cold, dim chamber, with the wind rattling something outside and a man to her right.
To be fair, she didn’t mind the man at all. Randur looked back at her with a soft gaze, his dark hair falling in front of his face. He was propped up on one elbow, wearing only a thin cream tunic which was a size too large for his lithe frame.