The Five Elements (41 page)

"Wha—No! Why would you—"

"Look around! Do you think the druids are just going to let me walk away from this? It's too late, Aaron." Shanna turned and took a few steps away. When she stood before the machine that looked completely out of place amid the rubble, she turned back to them. "You
do
think I'm stupid. Too stupid to see what's going on around me! Too stupid to figure things out! Do you think I brought Erlek's machine with me for no reason? Do you think I had no idea what he was planning? I know what happened five hundred years ago, Aaron. That is
not
going to happen to me."

Aaron swallowed. Serena's grip on his hand tightened. "What are you going to do, then?"

"Erlek had a plan. I'm going to see it through."

"But, you've already done that, Shanna."

"Now who's stupid? Retrieving the Four Elements and bringing them here was only part of it. The rest was…" She turned, looking at the machine. "The rest was to use this," she said, waving her hand across its length. "Erlek wanted the power of the Fifth Element. The power of the druids. I have that. But only because of the Elements. I'm shackled to them. They're a weakness. Erlek's machine will remove that weakness and make me whole."

Aaron let out a breath. "How is it going to do that?" He was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that, but asking it at least bought him the time it would take Shanna to answer. The machine was too much like Ansanom's, with its metal gears and crisscrossing glass tubules. That, and the two men had been collaborators in what Aaron suspected was a shared purpose. Perhaps they each had their own agendas—surely they were each too devious to share all of their knowledge—but for both of them to have each constructed such engines… . Their purpose must be the same, or at least very similar.

"You told me once about attunement," Shanna said. "How every living thing has a particular signature, but how some are very nearly the same. Sorcerers share an attunement to magic. Druids, to the earth. But Erlek was neither sorcerer nor druid. He wasn't even a descendant of the elementalists. But he'd seen their power. He knew what possibilities control of the Elements would bring him. Erlek built this machine to gain mastery over them. He wanted to alter his attunement, to become an elementalist or a druid or perhaps something entirely new. The only problem is that…" Shanna's face flushed. She took a deep breath, then blurted out, "The only problem is that I don't know how to work it." She stood straighter, daring him to mock her. She waited, expectantly.

"You think I do?" From his vantage point, Aaron made a show of inspecting the machine. "I've never seen anything like it before," he said, hoping she'd forgotten his earlier inference. "I have no idea how it works."

"That doesn't matter. You're smart, Aaron. You can figure it out. I know you can."

"Maybe, but that doesn't matter. I'm not going to help you. Look at what you've done already. Like this, the druids can still stop you. But if you become one of them…"

"If I become one of them, nothing can stop me."

Aaron let go of Serena's hand and crossed his arms in a stance of defiance. "I won't help you. You can do whatever you want to me. I still won't help you."

Shanna snorted. "I don't need to do a thing to you, Aaron." She turned her gaze on Serena. "But, your friend…"

"Leave her alone, Shanna."

Winds swirled around Aaron and Serena, pushing them apart. Aaron was knocked away so that he fell harmlessly to the ground. Serena, however, was lifted and thrown—not gently—against a nearby rock. Her eyes fluttered, but she remained conscious. Aaron managed to regain his feet and was just rushing to aid her when a ring of fire sprang up around her. Aaron held his hands to his face against the sudden heat, but he could go no farther. Then the ring, the flames of which did not yet touch Serena, began to narrow around her.

Aaron turned back to Shanna. There was no glee there, no satisfaction. Her features were molded with determination. When she spoke, it was in a voice that was impassive and business-like. "Help me, or I'll kill her."

It only took Aaron a moment to make up his mind. Sighing, he said, "Alright. I'll help you." The ring froze in place, neither withdrawing nor moving closer. Serena was safe, for now.

Aaron walked to the machine. As he did so, he came as close to Shanna as he'd been since before the attack on the city. When he could almost reach out and touch her, he paused, letting his gaze meet hers. Though Shanna's expression did not change, Aaron thought he saw a quivering in her lip. But that was all. Aaron took the remaining steps to Erlek's machine.

Ansanom had called his machine an extraction engine, though Aaron knew it did much more than extract energy signatures from living tissue. It manipulated that energy, coursing it through vats of alchemicals that then altered its disposition. Ansanom's machine hadn't worked because the source material—Aaron—had been wrong. But if Ansanom had captured Shanna instead… . Aaron wondered if even then it would have worked. Given the correct test subject, the alchemical solution was the key. Wanting to confirm the presence of a similar process, Aaron climbed onto the device in order to inspect the vats. Under the watchful eye of Shanna, he undid the latch on one of them. It was filled with a solution that stank of sulfur and rotting eggs. Sulfur as a base, with mercium and imamium as catalysts most likely. Aaron refastened the lid. There was no extraction apparatus like on Ansanom's machine. But there were three bulging discs that reminded Aaron of great, translucent jellyfish, only without the string-like tentacles, at the top of the machine. Aaron studied the discs and the glass tubules springing forth from them. They were meant to absorb ambient energy, then pass a diluted version of that energy through the tubules and into the first of the vats. The cogs, gears, and drive shafts were there to shake and mix the solutions. Control arms were attached either high or low to each of the vats. One alchemical mixture flowed into the next. Aaron followed the line of tubules transferring the fluid to what looked like a transmogrification element. The element's output was in turn connected to a ‘lampshade’. The more technical name was a forzinian or energy imbuer. It represented the final step of the process where the reattunement energy was dispensed to the individual. The interaction was, presumably, what altered the recipient's energy attunement. The key to the process was, like Ansanom's machine, in the alchemical mixture, which altered the disposition of the attuning energy. Determining the composition of that mixture must have been exacting. Aaron didn't doubt that both men had spent much of the past five hundred years concocting it either individually or through collaboration. He spent another few minutes inspecting other parts of the machine, making a show of interest in certain other areas. In truth, he'd seen enough to know what was going to happen when Shanna had him turn the machine on. If he told her, she'd only think he was lying or trying to trick her. If he said nothing… 

If anyone but Shanna stood there, he'd have no problem turning the machine on and letting what happened happen. But it
was
Shanna. She was his friend. There were times when he had thought she might be something more. Even now, despite what she'd done, part of him ached to jump from the machine and go to her. She was in pain. Even the old Shanna, though, had never been that willing to accept succor. Aaron doubted that much had changed. Other things had, though. She'd crossed a line. She'd killed. Not just once, but many times over and not all in self-defense. Even now, she held Serena in thrall, and might kill her at any moment. By all that was right, Aaron should turn the machine on now. Let it absorb both the ambient energy of the Elements and Shanna's current energy signature, diffuse it into the machine's pre-programmed alchemical mixture, and let it end this madness. But doing so would also end Shanna's life. Still, it was the right decision. The only decision. But, as Aaron took in Shanna's expectant gaze, blue eyes blazing with the sky's fire, that raven hair sweeping about her face, he knew he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill his friend.

Aaron jumped down from Erlek's machine. "It won't work."

Shanna flashed the expected look of annoyance. "Then make it work," she said, casting her glance at Serena and the flames surrounding her, "or I'll—"

"It
will
work, just not on you. It's calibrated to modify Erlek's attunement, not yours. If you try to use it, it will kill you."

"Then recalibrate it."

"It's not that—"

"I am not asking you, Aaron! Recalibrate the machine or say goodbye to your friend!"

In demonstration of her sincerity, the ring of fire trapping Serena shrank inward. Serena stood straight as an arrow, not daring to move her body, though her eyes darted at Aaron, pleading with him to help her.

Aaron dug his heels in, hoping Serena understood that he was trying to help her. "I can't! I don't have the equipment. I would need—"

"What?" Shanna asked. "You would need what? These?" She reached into her robe and pulled out a tuning fork and a frequency meter. "I remembered how you used to walk around the city, always taking your measurements with these things. I saw them on Erlek's work table, so I took them. I told you I wasn't stupid."

She threw the appurtenances to the ground. Aaron only eyed them at first. He looked up at Shanna, took in her hard stare for one moment, then bent to pick up the measuring instruments. He gave them a cursory examination, partially by habit and partially to make sure they still worked. They did.

"Now," Shanna said, "take your measurements. Calibrate the machine and don't even think of telling me you don't know how. I know how smart you are, Aaron. I know you can figure anything out. For you, this should be trivial."

Not trivial, Aaron thought, but not impossible, either.

Aaron turned back to the machine, thinking. He didn't know everything about the machine nor did he know enough about the re-attunement process. Erlek had five hundred years to understand both. Ansanom, the same. He'd barely had five minutes. Still, he knew the principal by which it was meant to work and, assuming Ansanom's machine functioned in a similar fashion, Aaron knew more or less how this one would too. Erlek would have already calibrated the machinery to the proper frequency of the Elements. He also would have input the frequency of his own attunement. As a first step, Aaron knew he'd need a similar measurement from Shanna.

He spent more time examining the machine, walking slowly around it and acting as if he were taking ambient measurements. Once he had Shanna's reading, he'd return to the machine, try to figure out how to make the proper adjustments, and then… what? Turn it on and, if he'd done things right, watch her become a druid? He'd have to find a better answer.

Aaron went to Shanna, who showed hesitation at his approach but relaxed when she saw he only meant to take some readings from her. Aaron took his measurement, making note of the frequency value. By habit, he reset the measuring device, readying it to take a second measurement to verify the first. He lowered his head, holding the device close to his chest as he made sure it was calibrated properly. When next he looked up, he saw that they were no longer alone.

The look of surprise on his face was warning enough for Shanna as she spun about. Already, they'd formed a half-circle around the platform. There were eleven of them, wearing brown robes with hoods thrown back, all with hands that were bare and clenched into fists. They were plain-featured and every one of them old. But not frail. There was strength in their movements and power in their stern gazes. Five men and six women, Aaron counted. Every one of them had eyes only for Shanna.

"Go finish with the machine, Aaron," Shanna said from over a shoulder as she positioned herself between the glowing depression and the druids.

Aaron, unconsciously backing from the ensuing conflict, nodded, then he turned and ran to the engine. Beneath his feet the earth shook, threatening to throw him off-balance. With winds buffeting him from all directions, he only just managed to grab hold of one of the engine's metal supports before it rose to such a velocity that his feet no longer touched the ground. He sequestered himself within, hoping it was heavy enough to stay grounded. He risked one glance over a shoulder, but saw only flames billowing like clouds at the spot where the druids advanced on Shanna. Serena was lost in that maelstrom also. Aaron was neither sorcerer, nor druid, nor elementalist. But he knew alchemy and alchemical machinery. He looked at Erlek's machine with new eyes. Then he got to work.

* * *

Unable to will his legs into a standing position, Ensel Rhe crawled to his sword. Around him rang the sounds of battle as sitheri scimitar crossed with Krosus's butcher blade. Focused on nothing but his own weapon, Ensel Rhe imagined the snakemen approaching the houndmaster from both sides, much as they'd done to him. In a move of deception, one feinted, while the other moved in for the killing stroke. It didn't matter, for Ensel Rhe knew well the houndmaster's knack for shrugging off such blows. Nor did Ensel Rhe care, as long as Krosus did not claim the snakemen's lives for himself. Ensel Rhe did not know from whence the houndmaster had come. Once they'd harnessed the hounds, Aaron had ordered him to follow at his best pace. No one expected to see him for days. Magic, then. For now, it was explanation enough.

Ensel Rhe stood with sword in hand. His legs held him steady now as long as he made no sudden movement. Though his head slowly cleared, his side remained aflame. He embraced the pain, letting it become his penance for ever thinking he could return home without consequences. He'd gone back and his son had paid the price. The memories of finding Hannu's scalped body became his center now. The physical discomfort of his broken ribs, his weary muscles, his addled head were nothing next to such pain. Ensel Rhe took a deep breath, hardly feeling the scorching pressure against his broken bones now. Then he rejoined the battle.

Almost too late as Krosus sacrificed himself to gain a killing stroke of his own. The sitheri—not the one who'd displayed Hannu's scalp to Ensel Rhe—seized upon what it thought was a lapse in judgment, leaping in to slash his curved blade deep into the houndmaster. By the time it became aware of the ruse, it was too late. Even as he fell, Krosus hacked into the sitheri, cutting through the snakeman's shoulder all the way through to its chest. A visible shock ran through the sitheri's body, then its unblinking, serpentine eyes went blank. Its body slid free from Krosus's blade just before the demon himself collapsed to the ground. The battlefield was cleared, with only Ensel Rhe and the other sitheri remaining.