Guardian (35 page)

“
It—I—”

“
Because the Veil is doing nothing of the kind. We have been using it as a host for the programs that defend us, but it hardly volunteered for that, did it? And it’s been doing everything in its isolated, limited power to undo it! The Veil does not want to save us. The Veil would rather we all die, so it can be free. And it is using you, right now, to make that happen. If you do this, Hero, if you destroy the Keeper you will be doing only what it wants you to do. And you will doom us all.”

“
No!” The Other stumbled back toward the coffin, one hand reaching behind him as though seeking reassurance from the Veil just on the other side of all that silex and debris. “No, this is my gift! It’s giving me back everything I lost. So I can protect you all again. So I can be strong and free—”

The Keeper, taking advantage of the Other
’s distraction, began to dissolve and send himself out, away from this place.

The Other spun, suddenly, fingers pointing and eyes blazing and screamed
“
You stay where you are!
” But not in his own voice, not this time.

“
Veil,” I breathed. It sounded like both of the voices it had appropriated—like a mixture of Kichlan and Uzdal—but distant and distorted.

The Veil did not belong in either world and, for all the power beaming bright in Uzdal
’s eyes, it was helpless here. It had guided the programming of the puppet men. It had uploaded the Other through ancient Half technology. But without a puppet to work through, the Veil could do nothing to us.

The Other lifted Uzdal
’s hand and stared intently at his fingers. The light in his eyes wavered, dying then burning brightly again, and his hand shook. A look of great confusion cast shadows across his borrowed, too-pale face.

“
What’s happening to you, Hero?” I asked, and approached him.

“
Tan?” Kichlan ran forward and wrapped his arms around me. “What are you doing? Don’t go near him! Please, just don’t!”

“
I will be all right.” I tried to twist around and look him in the eye but Kichlan held me too tightly. He even bent at the legs slightly and lifted my feet from the ground. “Let me go, Kichlan.”

“
No,” he hissed against the back of my head. “You have to stop putting yourself in situations like this. At risk. Constantly at risk.”

“
But I have too—”

“
I need you. Don’t you care? Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

I stopped trying to fight him, and leaned back against him instead.
“It does, of course it does. And I need you too. When I thought you were dead—” my voice hitched “—you can’t imagine how much it hurt. And when I slept, I dreamed of you, and I was happy there, no matter what was happening, no matter the fear and the pain in the worlds around me… None of it mattered, because I dreamed of you.” I drew a deeply shuddering breath. How I longed to turn in his arms and press my face against the soft skin of his neck and the solid curve of his jaw and do nothing else. Nothing but touch him. Nothing but enjoy the fact that he was strong, and warm, and alive. Alive. But I couldn’t, not yet. So I had to do this. I had to do it right. It was the only way I would ever hold him again. “Kichlan, you have to trust me. I am not going to leave you. Never, ever again. Please, put your faith in me.”

He squeezed me for a moment more, so hard that if it wasn
’t for the silver in my body I thought I might have snapped. So much like his brother. That thoughtless, but deep-feeling embrace.

“
You’d better not.” He placed me back on my feet, and let go. He took a single step back. “I’ll come after you, this time, if you do.”

“
Promise?” I whispered.

“
Promise.”

Smiling despite everything, I stepped forward.

The Other was still staring at his fingers.

“
You can feel it, can’t you?” I said. “You know what he’s doing. Using you, tricking you. You sacrificed so much to save this world and now, with your help, the Veil is going to destroy it.”

“
No, that’s impossible!” The Other looked up, his eyes flickering. “It wouldn’t! It said—it said—”

I took another step.
“If you’re right, then why did it interfere with you? I heard its voice, and you felt its presence. If the Veil only ever wanted to help you, then why would it care what you did, as long as you were happy? Hero, leave the Keeper be. Close the doors you have opened. You don’t have to believe me; so why don’t we leave it up to the Veil? Stop this destruction, and let’s see what it does in response.”

“
But it said—But it must be—”

Pushing down my uncertainty, I took Uzdal
’s outstretched hand. His cold flesh sent shivers up my arm. His skin felt too soft, almost wet. No pulse beat inside it. Nothing but the Other’s code and the power of pions giving movement to empty flesh.

“
Do not lie to yourself,” I said, and held the gaze that had once been Uzdal’s. How I missed him. His calm, his clear head and constant, dry wit. But he was gone. Long gone. “You can see the truth. Feel it. You know what it means to be the defender of this world. Tell me, is that really what you are doing now?”

The Other drew back his hand. I opened my fingers, and let him. The sound of rattling wood stilled into silence, and the flickers of doors on the edges of my vision faded.

The Keeper approached, slowly, wearily.

“
They’re lying to you!
” The Veil’s voice suddenly crackled from Uzdal’s mouth. “
Why are you listening to them? I am the Veil, I am truth. I brought you here to wreak your revenge and take your rightful place. Why do you hesitate?
”

“
It’s using you,” I said, voice low, body poised and tense. It felt like standing on the thin surface of a frozen lake. One misstep and the Other—and the Veil—would swallow us in darkness and cold. “Listen to the panic in that voice. Does it still sound like an all-powerful god?”

“
Stop vacillating and just do it! Do it or I will send you back to your bones, to your cage. And you can stay there, trapped forever
!”

Uzdal
’s neck snapped as he looked behind him, face twisted with fear and disbelief. “No, please. I can’t go back to that dead body. It doesn’t feel, it hardly moves, I can’t even remember what it’s like to breathe! I don’t belong there, I’m so much more than dead skin and old bones!”

“
And now it’s threatening you,” I kept the pressure up. “Can’t you hear how desperate the Veil is, how untrustworthy? Can’t you feel it?”

The Other hesitated, and Uzdal
’s body shuddered. There was something wrong with it, something stemming from the break evident in his crooked neck. Mizra wept, somewhere in the distance, and I started to wonder if we should get his brother’s body back into the silex coffin.

“
What the fuck is wrong with you? What more do you need from me? You disgusting, useless fragment of a man. For once in your failure of a life can’t you do something right
?”

The Other clutched at Uzdal
’s head. “I can’t go back there, I won’t go back there! Even if you’re right, even if the Veil is—the Veil is—what choice do I have?”

When he looked up, the Keeper was standing beside me, close enough for the Other to touch him and tear at him, if he had wished. The programs stared at each other.

“I understand,” the Keeper said. “The way you feel.”

“
How can you?” the Other spat. “You? You’re the reason they dragged me back into my dead body, the reason they locked me in my eternal cage. You understand nothing! You’re not even human!” But his voice broke, over the final word.

Very slowly, the Keeper took the Other
’s hand. Both so pale, neither truly alive.

“
No,” the Keeper said. “And neither are you. At least, you have not been for a very long time.”

“
I—”

“
And I do understand.” The Keeper looked around, and his doors reappeared. Rattling, some rotten, some rusting. “This is why I am here. But I almost failed. When the puppet men tried to absorb me, to destroy me, I was so sad. This is what I was built to do and I could not do it! Not even that one, all-important thing. So I do know what you are feeling. The home you have lost, the reason that has been taken from you.”

The Other tried to swallow but Uzdal
’s dead throat caught half way. He stared at the Keeper, part in horror, part in hope.

“
I’m sorry for what happened to you, when I was created,” the Keeper continued. “But you know, I am only what they made me. Hate me, if that helps, but don’t destroy these worlds for vengeance. Aren’t we here to protect them, Favian? Both of us.”

“
But it isn’t fair!
” the Veil croaked, almost inaudible now. “
You sacrificed so much already, and still they ask for more. It isn’t fair
.”

“
You have a choice, now,” I said. “It all rests on you.” On the mad ghost of a man that had, thousands of years ago, sacrificed his own body to save two worlds. I had to believe that some vestige of the Hero he once was remained. Core-1 West, and its brethren, were surely proof of that. No matter the ulterior motives, the Other had done so much for the people of Crust. And even though Lad had warned me not to, and even though Meta had, by the end, agreed with him, I had to trust the Other.

All of us were broken, in our own way.

“You can choose to do this, and kill the Keeper, if you wish. You will destroy two worlds, but you will free the Veil. Or, you can defy it, and continue to save us all.”

“
Me?” the Other whispered.

“
We all have choices we must make.” I smiled. “And I choose to put my faith in you, Favian.”

“
As do I,” the Keeper said with a nod.

I reached down and took the Keeper
’s hand. Through the touch, I felt the beat of his debris pulse. Fear that otherwise, he did not show.

“
I will send you back to your prison,
” the Veil croaked. “
Without my power, you are nothing
.
Do as I have asked, and I will give you life. In me, in the city of your past. No more hard choices, no more Guardians or sacrifices or pain. You know I have this power. You have felt it. You know what you must do
.”

The Other looked up to the Keeper.
“I hated you for so long.”

The Keeper said nothing.

“But I cannot destroy you now. I was sent here to protect these worlds. And I could not knowingly doom them. I am the Hero.” He nodded, to himself. “Yes, I still am.”

I released a great breath I hadn
’t even realised I was holding. “Thank you, Favian, you have—”

“
Doomed me
,” the Veil said. “
You’re no better than the others
.”

Favian shuddered.
“What will you do to me now?” he asked the presence inside the boy with him. “Return me to my body, to my Shard?”

“
I should
,” the Veil, however faint, sounded spiteful. I closed my eyes, for a moment, against that pain. Distant, and belonging to a creature that didn’t really exist in this world. But still, I could understand it. Feel for it. “
That is what you’ve done to me. Returned me to my cage. Taken away the first chance for freedom I have had
.”

I frowned, and looked down to my code and my pions.
“I’m sorry, Veil,” I said. “I truly am. Even though I can’t allow you to finish what you tried to do, I understand why you have done it. It isn’t fair. You were dragged into this, unknowing, unwilling, and you will never escape.”

Just like me. My cage was silver and code. And it might not be trapping me between realities, but it had taken my life away. It took my career, my skill, my choices. Then my body, my collecting team, and my very understanding of the world, of my life, of what anything meant. It had taken Lad, and Devich, and my son. It had almost taken Kichlan.

“
Your sympathy and understanding means nothing to me
,” the Veil faded even further. “
It changes nothing. It does not give me back my freedom, it does not right the wrong that was done to me—through no fault of my own. Say goodbye to your precious Hero, and keep patting yourself on the back. We must return to our cages, to wait out the ages, alone
.”

“
No,” Favin gasped, his fear so bright in Uzdal’s eyes. “Please don’t.”

“
This is the choice you made
, Hero,” the Veil hissed. “
So you’d better get used to the loneliness. Again
.”

“
But you’re not alone.”

As one, we turned. Sofia, blind and crippled Sofia, tied down and kept alive by a web of heavy silex and thin wires, was struggling to get to her feet. For a moment, the very air felt heavy, and all we did was stare. Then the stump of her amputated arm slipped on the stones and she toppled back to her side, and the stillness broke. Kichlan hurried back over and tried to convince her to lie down again, even as Natasha crouched on her other side and tried to help her stand.

“
What
?” the Veil whispered. The look of pity on Uzdal’s face seemed so strange, merging from a dead man, an ancient programmer, an alternate reality.

Sofia shooed Kichlan away by waving the bloody stumps of her arms at him, and leaned on Natasha instead. She was smiling, below her bandages, and I didn
’t understand why. It felt so surreal. Kichlan and Natasha, both pale and looking faintly like they wanted to be sick, a room full of Unbound and debris collectors and pion-binders, all hanging on her every word while Sofia smiled, calmly. Sofia, who had the least to smile about.

“
I said…” Her voice was weak, her body shook and only Natasha’s strength kept her on her feet but still, Sofia pressed on. “I said, you’re not alone. You have Uzdal, around you. And the Other, beside you. And all of us. So even though it hurts, even though you want to give up, you can’t. Because you aren’t alone.”

Slowly, the Veil stepped forward. I tensed, ready to stop it if I needed to.

“What’s happening?” the Keeper whispered to me.

“
I don’t know,” I murmured back.

The Veil stopped in front of Sofia and traced Uzdal
’s dead fingers down the edges of her bandages.

“
I can see you,” Sofia said. “The Tear River burned my eyes away, but I can see you.”

I swallowed hard. Broken pieces of the puppet men
’s experimental code? Flushed into the Tear when I destroyed their laboratory and bonded with Sofia’s suit when the water burned beneath her skin? That was the only explanation I could think of. It wasn’t too dissimilar to what Lad had done to me, I supposed. In its own terrible way.

“
How does that help me, child
?” the Veil had lost some of its anger. In the face of Sofia’s injuries, and her smile, I supposed, it was difficult to hold onto such bitter feelings. Even ones that had been festering for millennia.

“
I can tell that you are not alone. You are bright and shining. And there’s a Keeper within you, and a Hero. Tan’s baby—” my heart leapt “—and even more. Voices and memories and words talking to you, through you, back and forth, over and over and forever.”

My son?
I mouthed the words, unwilling to speak them. Not dead. Not gone. Just inside the Veil.

“
I know
,” the Veil said.
“
That is what pins me here. What are you trying to say
?”

“
Well,” Sofia lifted a mutilated arm as though she wanted to take the Veil’s hand, “why don’t you try talking back?”

An idea was building, slowly. I glanced between Sofia
’s bandaged eyes, Kichlan’s silver arm, and the bands of my own suit, slowly spinning. It wasn’t fair, none of it. The Veil’s existence, Sofia’s injuries. I couldn’t undo them. And I wasn’t sure I could heal them, but Sofia standing there so calmly convinced me it was worth the risk. I had to try.

“
Talking back
?”

“
Yes.” I approached the Veil slowly, calmly, like it was a wild animal. Or a distressed Half. “Yes, Sofia’s right. You are trapped between us, but you do not have to be all alone. You told me how grateful you were to have Favian to talk to. What if you had others? What if you had us?”

“
But—but I can’t
.”

“
You’re talking to me now,” Sofia said, with a tiny laugh and a tip of her head.

“
And me,” I said.

“
And me,” the Keeper added his voice.

“
Only because of her
,” the Veil pointed at me with Uzdal’s hand. “
And Favian. Because you created a bridge between the worlds, and I sent Favian to follow you
.” He looked down at the body he and the Other were sharing. “
And because this dead boy was hooked up to the particle flow at the same time. Not on my own
.”

“
So why don’t you stay? Both of you?”

“
Trapped in this dead—
” the Veil actually paused, and glanced at Mizra. Hope thrilled through me, that the Veil would even care about Mizra enough not to hurt him, not any more than it already had. “
Trapped in here, with the Other
?”

But I shook my head.
“No, actually. I have an idea. But it’s not up to you, or even me. It all rests on Sofia.” I turned to her, quite confident she could see the code within me. “It might hurt. I don’t really know what I’m doing, so I will need the Other’s help. And the Veil too, I think. And it will come at a cost—” I swallowed hard. “And I’m sorry, because you’ve lost so much already.”

Sofia just smiled.
“No one should be left,” she said, “pitiful and all alone.”