Chapter VIII

Charity led the way out of the small room, disregarding the mess of notes and textbooks on the table. Ambrose followed her into the chaos, although the general bustle seemed to quiet a little in her path. As long as he stayed in her wake, nothing whizzed by his head or threatened to trip him. The pulleys were wide open, a handle resting in each opening. Charity adjusted the floor dial to ‘P’ and clicked a button on the other end before turning around. “I’ll meet you down there.” She stepped off into the darkness and dropped out of view. Ambrose copied the movements on the shaft next to that one and jumped off, his eyes still shut as he fell.

The pulley handle fell down, down, down, even farther down. Farther than he’d ever gone. A brighter light than before glowed at the bottom when he looked down, growing brighter the closer he got. Finally, he touched down and let go of the handle, which immediately whirred back upward. He didn’t bother looking up. The room in front of him had his complete attention.

The ceiling soared high above his head, easily as tall as Honor Cavern and probably taller. Around the edges of the room ornate cabinets reached all the way up to the ceiling. Swirls of copper and metal gears ornamented everything, though none of these moved. Ambrose tried to see all of the unique designs, but his view of the far side of the room was impeded by the room’s main attraction. As wide as he was tall, covered in artistic flourishes and proud components, the whole outside of the Central Pillar consisted of transparent panels like the one on Charity’s vital. He stepped out of the pulley alcove and looked upward to the ceiling. Charity joined him a second later, her own vital in her hand. “Amazing, isn’t it? Every time I’m in here I find something new to focus on.”

Charity stepped forward and pressed her hand to one of the opaque metal panels at the base of the Pillar. It slid open to reveal an empty space. She placed her vital in the waiting slot and retracted her hand as the metal claw grabbed hold of the cylinder. As soon as the door shut, the whole Pillar came alive. Different rings of vitals spun in various directions, and some of the cylinders switched levels. Charity’s vital rose up to the third level from the top and stopped, the ring freezing as well. With meticulous care, the claw inserted the vital into the empty space and retracted back to the ground level. The Pillar ceased its movements, returning to a still, serene state.

“Wow. Even more wow.” Ambrose pointed up to where her vital rested. “And that went really high. Why is that?”

“The long answer? They say I have more potential than most. The vital is stronger and brighter, so it goes higher. However, there are still a few above me. And there’s a lot of people ranked higher than me with lower vitals, so this isn’t a perfect representation.”

Ambrose nodded. “And the short answer?”

“It’s part of the magic. Sometimes the Pillar rearranges the vitals for no reason that we can tell. Some Engineers say that each thing they create is a little bit alive. Going off of that, this is probably the most ‘alivened’ thing that any Engineer has created.”

“And I’m going to have a vital up there one day?”

Charity nodded before walking over to a set of cabinets and kneeling down. She pressed her fingertips to a decorated panel on the floor. It swung up, revealing a shelf of still vitals. She selected one and replaced the panel. After inspecting it, she walked back over to Ambrose and handed him the vital.

“Take this and hold it in both hands out in front of you.” Ambrose did so. “Can you find that place where you said your core should be?” He nodded. “Okay, I want you to try to channel that cloud into your arms towards the vital. It’s going to be hard, but you can do it.”

Ambrose closed his eyes and imagined the cloud of energy in his chest. Then he tried to push the gas into his arms. Nothing. He clenched his muscles and imagined the energy being sucked into his arms. A little more motion, but nothing useful. The gas didn’t want to move. What if he compressed it into particles and then tried to move it? Ambrose pushed in on the gaseous energy, willing it to form something he could interact with. Slowly, it condensed into two almost-particles of roughly equal size. He gently pushed on them. They moved.

With renewed vigor, Ambrose pushed the particles into his arms. Everywhere they went, they burned. His muscles clenched as the particles passed through, a thin line of energy connecting it back to the gas in the center of his chest. “I think I have it. What now?” His voice sounded strained, more so than he would have thought.

“Uh, okay. Get the gas into the vital. Imagine it condensing outside your body and inside the vital.”

“It’s not a gas anymore.” Ambrose pushed on the particles of energy, forcing them through his skin and into the metal. They burned even hotter as they left, hot enough that he expected the metal to burst into flames and melt on the spot. But the vital remained intact. He forced the energy closer and closer together, willing them to reunite in the center of the vital. The particles moved inward, increasing in proximity until just before they merged. They resisted the motion, as if something kept them apart. He gritted his teeth and shoved them together, abandoning any semblance of gentleness. With a visible flash, the particles united inside the vital and filled the clear portion with some sort of smoke or mist. When the haze cleared, the vital glowed bright, gears spinning so fast that Ambrose could barely see their teeth.

He blinked, holding the vital in one hand. A sheen of sweat covered his face, and his jaw hurt. And that tiny burning sensation along his arms stayed too. But inside, the gas had started to condense on its own. He squeezed it together, harder than he had with the vital. It flared within him and shrunk from a cloud down into a point of light and energy. Infinitely small, but a start.

“Did I do it right? Is it going to explode?” Ambrose handed the vital to Charity, as if it were a dangerous project he didn’t want near him.

Charity shook the glaze from her eyes. “Yes, you did fine. Better than fine. And no, it’s perfectly safe.” She motioned to the Pillar. “Shall we?”

Ambrose tapped his fingers against the panel from before, revealing the same empty space. He rubbed the edge of the vital before surrendering it to the machine inside the Pillar, stepping back to watch its ascent. It probably wouldn’t go far, but he still wanted to keep an eye on it.

This time as the central lift commenced its journey upward, the rings of vitals were utterly still. It rose above the middle of the Pillar, above the second cluster. Up to the top five rows. Then the top three. It passed Charity’s and continued upward. Ambrose squinted to make it out against all the other pieces and parts up that high.

The vital clicked into place at the very top of the Pillar, light inside flaring. If Charity’s eyes had been slightly glazed before, they were completely out of focus this time. “Sweet Mother of Machines. Right at the top.”

Ambrose could still see it despite all the other vitals in the way. The glow was hard to miss. The glow…

“Charity, what makes the vitals glow?”

She shook off the dust and cobwebs once again. “Glow? Oh, all of them glow a little. It’s a product of the power they have inside them. There’s something alive in there. At least, I think so. Part of you, or your magic, lives in there. Normally you can see them after you’ve awakened your core. Also normally, your own vital glows brightest compared to the others, but currently there’s one glowing brighter than mine in my eyes.”

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She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, thin black box. There seemed to be a lock on the edge of it, although Ambrose couldn’t see a way to open it. “Do what you just did, only smaller. You’ll only need a trickle of energy to disengage the lock.”

Ambrose took the box in his hands and let the tiniest bit of energy flow from his core and down through his arms to the box. The mechanism clicked, and the lid popped open. He raised it with his left hand and looked at its contents. A single pin lay on the softest fabric he’d ever felt, two copper-colored gears orbiting each other. He pulled it out and raised it up to the light of the vital--his vital--from the top of the Pillar. It shone like a beacon.

“Welcome to the Engineers. Most take a week, sometimes a mooncycle, to do what you did in a day. The highest congratulations, Ambrose.”

Cheer stumbled up the last few steps to the hideout, the bag over her shoulder feeling like she’d filled it to the hem with rocks instead of tools to cut rocks. She pushed through the camouflage hangings over the cave opening and walked the few more steps to the central table, where Creed’s plan was still pinned down. She dumped the tools there.

A quiet alarm bell started to ring in the back of her mind. Normally at least one of the others was making a ruckus. But right now it was quiet. Too quiet. Maybe Trust had stayed behind while the others were off somewhere. He tended to be the quietest of all of them. Or maybe they’d gotten caught up in something and were delayed or had to find a different route back. But no, a bag of clothes and a box of needles sat next to the right wall. And a stack of wooden boards with a can of glue on top. All where they should have been after a raid. Then where had everyone gone? And why? She looked back at the entrance, half-expecting Levity to come sauntering in.

The table scraped behind her, drawing her attention. She whirled around, hand going to her bag. Some of those tools were sharp enough to do damage. But no, just Mantra dragging the table over to the wall and flipping it up on its end. He unpinned the map and stuffed it in his pocket. “Mantra? What are you doing?” He didn’t look at her.

Arms grabbed her from behind, pinning her tightly. Cheer struggled in the grip of whoever had gotten the jump on her, but they had her too well. “Stop trying. It’ll make this easier,” Levity hissed in her ear.

“What?” Cheer stopped trying to break free. Levity walked her over to the upturned table. Mantra pulled her arms around the back of it and tied them in place, securing her waist and legs next. “Mantra! Tell me what’s going on!” Cheer tried to struggle against the rope, but the time to escape had come and gone.

Creed stepped from the shadows of the room in front of her. “Sorry, Cheer, but this is necessary.”

“Necessary? What do you mean ‘necessary’? What are you going to do to me?”

Creed didn’t answer, instead pulling off his shirt and tossing it over the back of a chair from the table. Levity raised an eyebrow. “What? I don’t want to get it on a new shirt. Do you have any idea what it does to fabric?”

The panic started to rise inside Cheer, although she forced it down. She had to be cool and demanding. They’d toss her out if she showed them that side of her.

Creed pulled a box off the top of the stack of recently-pilfered goods and opened it, revealing a rack of darts. Exactly like the one Cheer had pulled out of her bag a few hours before. “You know, striker venom really is potent stuff.” He seemed to be enjoying this a little too much.

“Uh, yeah, I know. I got hit with two of them my second week here.”

“And then you were out for a few days recovering from them. During which time you served no purpose in supporting any of us.” Creed pulled a small inkwell from his pocket and set it on the chair. “Back then you were too weak to take this, so we didn’t bother. But now, it’s become a necessity. You’re too old and you know too much for us to risk them taking you.” He pulled a dart from the rack and dipped it in the inkwell, drawing it out with the point covered in black.

Levity followed the movement. “Have you ever seen one of us dead to the world after getting hit? No, you haven’t. We’ve trained ourselves to take that poison and deal with it.” She raised the dart and stared at it with a smile. “Plus, if you’re going to be stuck with a bunch of needles, you might as well have something to prove for it.” She plunged the dart into Cheer’s right arm, holding it there with a vengeance until all the poison emptied from it. Immediately the muscles in her arm clenched up, a fire beginning to burn inside them.

“This will hurt more than anything you’ve ever experienced. But it will give you the edge to set you apart from everyone else you meet.” Creed stuck her with another needle in her left calf, sending the burning feeling up into her waist and chest. Her breath started to catch. “Hey, but you can’t fall asleep. We can only work while you’re awake. And the sooner this is finished, the better it is for all of us.” Levity dipped another pair of darts in the ink and jabbed them into Cheer’s arm, who screamed as poison-induced haze started to cloud her vision. She tried to claw at the shreds of her consciousness as they were torn from her, but one by one they slipped away until she didn’t have a handhold and fell into the darkness.

“Your Eminence. Emperor!” Hyeon’s eyes jerked open, his body going on full alert. Who had yelled at him? He lay in a small white room, no bigger than his bedchambers. Several beds had curtains hanging next to them, although only one had the curtains drawn.

“Where am I?” He tried to sit up, but a pain in his stomach forced him back down. It felt like some of his stomach acid had come to the outside.

“You’re in the infirmary, Your Majesty. Your wife is here too.” A young girl in a white robe and pinned-back hair leaned over him. “You’re going to be just fine. Although those acid burns might be there for a few days before they decide to go away.”

“Acid burns?”

“From the acid that we used to dissolve the crystal. The alchemists got on it right away when they heard what happened. After a few tests, they found something that worked, although a lot slower than they would have liked. And nobody lost any fingers in the process!” She hummed happily to herself as she rubbed some sort of cream on his arm. Whatever it was, it made the burning lessen greatly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow. What crystal? And where is my wife?”

The girl frowned down at him. “You really don’t remember?”

“No.”

“The reception party? The chaos? The attackers? The growing crystals?”

The memories rushed back to him like a sharp needle to the head. “Nari. Where is she?”

“Shhh, calm down. She’s right over there, behind those curtains.”

“Is she okay?”

The girl clicked her tongue at him. “You aren’t relaxing.”

“I am the Emperor! I demand to see my wife!”

She took a step back, a hand over her heart. “Okay, okay. Don’t get your bandages in a twist.” She started towards the bed with the drawn curtains. One of the healers seated nearby looked up and gasped in shock before hurrying over to Hyeon’s side.

“Our humblest apologies, Your Eminence. Seyeon is a student here. She has not yet learned to respect her superiors.”

“Yes, yes, very well. I accept your apology. Now what has happened to the Empress?”

The thin man looked over at the curtain, then back to Hyeon. You’d better stay laying down.” He snapped his fingers, and Seyeon drew back the curtain.

Nari seemed remarkably unchanged, the same grimace of pain frozen on her features as she slept. Her arms were at her sides, tied down with white cloth. Two healers sat over her, masks over their faces and goggles over their eyes. They each held a thin flask of green liquid in one hand and a set of tweezers in the other. Hyeon noted that while he had on a white robe tied at his waist, she still had on her torn dress from the reception. It didn’t seem as royal when it hung halfway in tatters around her. Little holes here and there had been burned away, presumably by acid. In the center of the table, where the healers were working, sprouts of amber crystal still grew up from her stomach. Little by little, the acid wore them down, but the spikes had already done more damage than any knife.

The healer near Hyeon saw the expression on his face. “They’ve assured me that they will do everything in their power to keep the Empress Nari alive. There is nothing you can do right now except rest and recover your own strength. Please, consider what I have said.” He bowed slightly to Hyeon and walked back over to the bed holding Nari, drawing the curtain and again hiding her from the Emperor’s view. But the image of the growing crystals stayed stuck in Hyeon’s head all the way until he fell into a fitful sleep.