‘How much longer must we wait?’ Eir asked out loud. She momentarily looked over to her sister, the Empress Rika, who remained impassive. ‘We may freeze out here — it’s so very cold.’ The man behind her, Randur Estevu, placed his arms around her protectively and whispered something into her ear, which seemed to warm her up.
Brynd found their affection mildly nauseating. ‘I haven’t noticed.’
‘Your enhancements,’ she said, ‘escape your attention. You can’t feel a thing, I’d wager. Meanwhile our bones will turn to ice.’
‘We’ll take as long as it takes, Lady Eir,’ he declared. ‘Besides, it’s ultimately up to Artemisia as to how long we remain out here.’
The blue giant lumbered into view, bearing down on them. Brynd remained astonished by this alien woman who had burst into their world seemingly from nowhere, bringing the two Jamur sisters, and offering them her aid. She was wearing typical clothing for these islands: breeches and undershirt, but she wore an overcoat cut for combat, with a body-sculpted, brown breastplate that was adorned with a thousand minute symbols, none of which Brynd had ever seen in all his travels. Her hair was tied back out of her way, exposing over her shoulder the handles of her swords. She eyed them curiously, as if she was about to say something patronizing.
Then Artemisia beckoned forth three cultists, two men and a woman dressed in black robes, who were carrying a trunk of relics. She gestured for it to be taken towards the large archway, and the cultists trudged off hastily, their cloaks fluttering in the breeze.
‘I will know soon enough,’ Artemisia announced, ‘how long it is we must remain out here.’ Whenever she spoke, it seemed all those around her listened. She commanded respect. Brynd wondered what her position was in her own world.
‘Have you all that you need?’ Brynd asked her.
‘For now,’ she replied.
‘If it carves a path in the wrong direction?’
‘You have your archers.’
‘And if it fails completely?’ he asked.
‘It will not.’
‘But if it does?’ Brynd pressed.
‘Then, commander, it will be because your cultists have tampered with the technology. The theory, as I have stated, is sound.’
Her skills in the Jamur language had improved rapidly, even if her attitude had not.
For the better part of thirty days, she been working with the city’s cultists; each night she returned to the Citadel in the centre of Villiren, where Brynd, Empress Rika, her sister Eir and the Night Guard were garrisoned, and she brought them relics. For millennia, cultists had monopolized these remnants from the technological glories of the past, even though they often only barely understood them; and now, for the first time, there were explanations as to their uses. Explanations both logical and full of absurdities. If only he could understand more of what she said. He wasn’t interested in the theory, but their application — she was promising she could aid his army, and that was all he was bothered about.
So they had gathered in their numbers, here in the Wych Forest to the south of Villiren, to watch her apply this knowledge. What happened here would give Brynd some indication of Artemisia’s true value to the people of the Boreal Archipelago.
The archway seemed to entrance her and Artemisia approached it with almost a religious fervour. As she retrieved a device from one of her pockets, Brynd stepped alongside her, under the gaze of the archers on either side.
‘This is the archway then,’ Brynd grunted. ‘It looks a fine piece of architecture, but really — you honestly think this is the place?’
‘Your scepticism does not favour you,’ she replied.
‘You mean does me no favours?’
‘That is what I said. I would have thought that, by now, given all you have seen, you of all humans would be more inclined to possess an open mind.’
‘It’s my scepticism that’s kept people alive!’ he responded. ‘You’d do well to remember that.’
It wasn’t a confrontation, but she didn’t acknowledge his remark. The cultists lowered the trunk to the ground, and stepped aside as Artemisia loomed over it. Torches were brought closer as she lifted back the lid to reveal what to Brynd appeared to be the contents of a junkyard in Villiren — bits of piping, metal sheets, all items that could be melted down into something more practical like a sword. But there were stranger things there, too, wires and intricate compasslike gadgets, and materials he hadn’t seen before.
He muttered disapproval of cultist trickery, and left it at that. Now was not the time to criticize: she was, after all, going to help him, help Jamur Rika, and help what was left of the Empire. Artemisia rummaged in the trunk.
‘I will commence the build,’ Artemisia announced, standing tall with two metal objects in her fists. She strode towards the archway and Brynd watched her work: at first she piled the relics at each side of the arch, and further away she began placing small metallic domes at regular intervals, stretching back through the ruins. She began connecting each of them up with a long cable, and then tied those around the arch. The process took the better part of an hour, and Brynd could sense anticipation and anxiousness from the archers.
Eventually, when Artemisia had rigged up an intricate latticework of wires, girders, poles and dials, it looked as if half the cathedral had almost been rebuilt out of this skeletal frame.
She turned to Brynd. ‘I am now ready for the first attempt.’
Brynd nodded and marched along each row of archers, giving sharp orders, seething at their lack of discipline as they listened lazily to him.
This wouldn’t happen with good honest army-bred soldiers, he thought. Still, it’s hired thugs or nothing.
Once the archers nocked their arrows, Brynd ordered them to regard the space in front of the archway and to wait on his word before firing. Then Brynd returned to his position alongside Jamur Rika, who remained strangely stern-faced and emotionless. She was not the young woman he remembered from Villjamur, and these violent times had affected her deeply.
The wind groaned in the clearing. Dead trees rattled behind them.
Artemisia stood in the centre of the scene now. She unsheathed her immense blades and took both swords into one fist. Then crouched down to the floor, where she began tinkering with some small device exactly as a cultist might. She called one of the cultists over, and the woman rushed forward, remarkably servile, then the two of them conversed in whispers. A moment later the cultist ran back to make some minor adjustments.
Oh come the fuck on, Brynd thought. This is taking forever.
The sound of static was faint at first, but increasing in volume. The fabric of the air surrounding Artemisia became charged: a fine web of white light could be discerned, like a ghostly net; it became clearer still, hanging there — not a net, but some three-dimensional grid. Brynd peered around and could see this grid extended to the area they were now in, reconstructing the cathedral ruins in light. He held up his hand and it passed unaffected through one of the glowing lines.
The lines of archers held tight, impassive at the spectral architecture. For several minutes they all stood there, waiting as if nothing had happened. The lines began to fade, the form of a cathedral vanished into the icy night, and Brynd kicked his boot against a crumbling piece of masonry before marching up to Artemisia.
‘Nothing, then,’ he declared, but Artemisia stood staring at the archway.
He followed her gaze, and then he noticed that the darkness within the arch was different from that outside. Inside was an utter blackness, totally devoid of light, whereas outside he could see the edges of branches and tree trunks picked out by torchlight.