Winterspell (50 page)

“Clara,” Godfather whispered urgently. “Not to rush you, but the longer we delay . . .”

She shook herself. “Of course.” Without further hesitation she held the half-formed picture of Erstadt in her mind and opened a Door in front of her, palm thrust into the air. The first wave of soldiers—some of the Prince's Army, and the mages with their sizzling arrows—began pouring through. As soon as she knew the Door was stable, she ran over to the next waiting group, which included Erik, and opened another Door. Right before Erik slipped through with his team, he clapped her on the back. It was, she suspected, the only endorsement she might ever receive from him.

Three more Doors, in rapid succession, and when the last person was through, she looked back at the shimmering seam of magic that marked the first Door, where Godfather stood waiting for her. He looked younger, as though the approaching fight were giving him new life, and so ferocious in his ragged clothes—was that still his favorite striped cravat, tied now around his neck?—that Clara wanted to run to him and plant a kiss right on his ruined metal eye.

Instead she nodded at him, and together they leapt through their Doors.

“Good luck!” Bo called out behind them, and then the Doors swallowed them away.

On the other side they emerged into chaos—a black road littered with faery bodies, and human slaves collared with iron spikes running in a panicked frenzy, their chains severed. Mechanized horses with infected, rancid flesh drew canopied carriages that might have been fine had they not been streaked with filth. The Summer Palace had been glamorous and bright, polished and sumptuous, but the capital was a mire of ironwork and teetering buildings with shattered, half-built walls. The black filth of constant destruction coated every surface, dusted the skin of every being; the sky was thick with it.

And the
faeries
 . . .

Suits of iron and metal plates covered them like second skins, with patches of frayed wiring hanging loose in their long white braids. Some of them sported swiveling blue knobs for eyes, lit by inner mechanics like that of a kambot, and mottled skin gave way to haphazard clumps of black bone and spinning metal gears. Long metal teeth lined their mouths. They rode loks, whipping them with long iron rods that sparked blue.

Clara emerged into the mess of it, aghast. Anise had gone mad enough to curse and torment her own people. Or perhaps, came the sickening thought, they so idolized her that they had done it to themselves. Automaton soldiers with ruined flesh jumped down from the walls, pistons in their legs whirring. Pain made their eyes bright, but they wore their half-made parts like proud ornaments.

The mages and the Prince's Army fought side by side through the fray, white bolts raking into the sides of buildings, axes slashing across the plated torsos of faery soldiers caught completely unawares.

Clara was still trying to get her bearings, with the Doors snapping shut behind her, when she felt Anise's anger.

It struck her through her link with Nicholas, whipping through her blood in a shock of pain. Even Godfather staggered, for some of his bond with Nicholas remained, corrupted though it was.

From somewhere in the frenzy came a howl more savage and furious than the others.

Nicholas, and Anise. Their voices mixed in a ghostly chorus.

Godfather tugged her on. “We have to get you out of here, before he finds you.”

She dodged a faery soldier's blue spear, throwing up her arms to create an unseen shield. The spear's bolt hit it and scattered, dissolving. Godfather ducked them both into an uneven alleyway. Jagged gear edges thrust up out of the grimy cobblestones, as though the contents of Godfather's shop had spilled across the world.

Clara leaned hard against a shuddering wall. A stray mechanik popped out of the ironwork and nipped at her boot. She kicked it away.

“Where's Ralk?” Godfather muttered.

“Clara,” crackled a tiny voice.

She adjusted her headset, squinting into the murk. “Ralk?”

“Clara, there's a problem. It's Nicholas—”

Screams of rage cut him off.

Clara started back the way they had come. “We have to go to them.”

Godfather grabbed her. “Clara, without you we stand no chance against Anise.”

“What shall I do, then? Leave them for dead?” She pulled away from him. “Stay close to me.”

They darted through screams, mage and faery and human, natural and mechanical. Soldiers shot their spears, and the mages their white arrows. The Prince's Army brandished their crude swords with as much courage as any knights, and she was suddenly, immensely proud of them. They had no magic, and still they fought.

A hand grabbed her leg, almost tripping her. She looked down to see a desperate human crouched in the rubble. Yellow pus crusted his wide eyes.

“You're like her,” he rasped. He stared wonderingly at her crackling white hands.

She kicked him off, spooked. “Only somewhat.”

They found Ralk and Kora at a bend in the road beneath a scorched metal sign. Faery symbols glinted on its surface; torn wiring sputtered and kinked.

Nicholas crouched beneath it, hands in his hair.

Kora trained her bow on him. “He's gone mad.”

A gash of silver bisected Ralk's cheek. “I fear he may be lost to us,” he said, panting.

Nicholas lifted his head. One side of him was a gleaming mass of steel rods and metal plates. Wire trailed down his belly, following the lines of his muscles. Tiny metal plates circled his neck, inching up over his jaw, dangerously close to his eyes.

Godfather swore.

“Clara, no,” Nicholas said as he got to his feet, as if he would run from her, looking at himself in horror. “Get away.”

She went to him without hesitation. The others called her back, and she ignored them. Explosions rattled the roofs; crackling wires littered the ground like eels. The faeries were gathering their artillery. Unpredictable booms shook the road.

Nicholas scrambled away, but Clara caught his arm and held fast. Immediately he shuddered in relief, let his eyes close. Some of the curse receded, sinking back into the wounds along his flesh.

A distant anger emanated from him, but it was not his.

A building down the way collapsed with a groan, sliding beneath the earth in a cascade of shining metal sheets.

“I'm here now,” Clara whispered to him, though the world quaked around them. “You'll stay with me from now on. All right?”

“Clara,” Godfather warned.

She rounded on him. “I know the risks! I can handle him. We have an agreement. Don't we?”

Nicholas laughed ruefully. “Better dead at your hands than at hers.”

How romantic,
a tiny malicious voice hissed from the metal cord at his throat.

Godfather led them down the road, Ralk and Kora flanking them with bows drawn.

“Which way?” Ralk said.

Clara paused, the warm weight of Nicholas pressed against her side. She felt along the veins of the earth, letting the binding's strength stretch her magic's awareness down the road, around the corner, north a ways, turning left and then right, delving deep, deep down beneath metal and steel into stone and ground. There was a drain, barred and encrusted with thick waste.

The foundations of the castle Wahlkraft.

She pointed at the corner ahead. “Turn there, then straight until I say otherwise.”

The way through the capital was nearly impassable. They could hardly take ten steps before having to fight their way past some scuffle or other. In the wake of the ambush, it seemed the entire citizenry—such as it was—had taken to the streets. The chaos of warring magic in the air tore through each roadway and railway trestle with earthquakes and random eruptions. Constant lightning surged from a sky that seemed to be slowly sinking, enveloping Erstadt in a stormy mire.

Human slaves with blue-tinged lips attacked faeries, mages, the Prince's Army, one another. A human man leapt from the corrugated metal roof over Clara's head onto the canopied roof of a carriage propelled by spindly steel legs. Inside, a faery woman, her hair an elaborate terrace of braids and wire, shrieked and struck him. Her gloved arm was bright with jewels, and blue shot from it—but more humans followed the first, their clothes in tatters, their fingernails black with rot. They swarmed on the carriage, and the air filled with stink and hot blue sprays.

“This is mad,” Kora spat in disgust. A young faery boy leapt out of the shadows and clawed at her leg, spitting like an animal. She shot
him at once. Her arrow scorched his chest, and he fell, a black, icy spot over his heart. One of his eyes twitched and detached with a small click, leaving behind a bundle of charred springs in his eye socket.

“I had no idea,” Ralk said, stunned, “that it was like this. None at all. That the capital had become . . .” They paused at a black bridge where a clock tower had fallen, its gears spilling into the dark water. A mass of confused mechaniks writhed like a pendulum that could not hold itself together. “Is it like this everywhere, Clara? Everywhere in Cane?”

“Much has happened,” Nicholas muttered, “since you've been hiding, Lord mage.”

Clara gripped his arm tight. She had heard the foreign rattle in his voice. She saw the cruel smile sharpening his face. “Nicholas, listen to me—”

He threw her aside and unsheathed his sword. “Clara, Clara,” he sang, Anise's voice twisting his, “little Lady Clara, she said some words and shared some blood and thinks she's something special.”

“Anise, leave him alone.”

He circled her, grinning. “I don't think I shall. This is far too much fun.”

Then he leapt at her, his sword flashing.

Clara unsheathed the knives strapped at her waist in one swift movement, ducked the swipe of his sword, whirled around, and caught his blade between hers. Their eyes met over the crossed metal.

His wavered uncertainly. Then with a wild shout he shoved her away with his sword. She barely dodged its tip.

Alone in the center of the bridge, he lurched to the railing and gave a short sob of pain. The muscles of his arms were so prominent, she thought his skin would burst open. “Clara, do it.”

“Listen to him,” Kora said from behind her. “He'll kill you and ruin everything.”

Clara was calm, her grip tight on her daggers. “I won't kill you, Nicholas.”

“Idiot girl!” Kora shouted.

Nicholas growled, “Before it's too late.” Then another, feminine voice echoed, mockingly, “Too late, too late, before it's too late.” He collapsed, gasping for air.

Clara took a step toward him. “If I kill you, our bond will no longer exist. I won't be able to match her.” She took another step, kept her face hard. “You'll have to be stronger. Now get up.”

He glared up at her through his hair; it was slick with oil and sweat.

She extended her hand. “Now.”

He took it, and as soon as he was on his feet, Clara started pulling him along again. She was relieved but also frantic with worry. How many more times would she have to fight him? How much deeper would Anise sink her claws?

Then she saw it.

“There,” she said, pointing. A drain, down the waterway at another bridge. A slimed hole into the deep of the world. Clara closed her eyes, extended her power along the water, into the darkness, and down. She sensed how the air curved as it passed around objects, how it chilled as the shaft deepened.

A ladder. An ancient stone floor covered ankle-deep in rot.

This must have been how Anise felt the world. Such an intimacy, such a terrible knowledge; Clara understood the temptation inherent in this power. Like an architect dropped into a world of infinite awareness and infinite possibilities, she felt an urge to explore and create.

“We'll climb down there,” she said, “and enter Wahlkraft through its belly.”

K
ora went first, then Godfather, Clara, Nicholas, Ralk. The way was long, the ladder corroded and slick with muck. At the bottom a tunnel extended in either direction. Torch brackets draped with cobwebs dotted the walls.

Far aboveground the fight continued; tremors shook clumps of earth from the ceiling.

Godfather, Ralk, and Kora readied their bows, arrows sparking. The humming light was just enough to see by. So far from fresh air, the arrows were feeble. Clara could empathize—it was difficult to stay focused, even though her bond with Nicholas lent her strength.

“Well?” Kora looked into the darkness, finger tapping on her bowstring. “Which way?”

“She's saying things,” Nicholas whispered.

Immediately Ralk trained an arrow on him.

Clara put up her hand, holding him off. “Saying what?”

Nicholas shook his head, clamped his hands over his ears. “Coming out to play . . . dances in the dark . . . I won't listen to you, you wicked, you
evil
—”

Clara pulled his hands away and held them. “You're right. You won't listen.” Inspiration struck her. “You told me you felt the hate returning, since being here, since seeing what she's done to your kingdom. Do you remember?”

He stared up at her wearily. “Yes.”

“And then you told me you had let go of your hate, long ago. Before. You said you'd had a good teacher. Like I did. Remember?”

Godfather made a small, strangled noise, and with that one sound Clara knew. She had been trying only to reach Nicholas, to pull him out of Anise's claws with a memory of something good, something just. And now she understood.

“It was my mother, wasn't it?” She smiled at Nicholas, trying not to cry. “She was your teacher.”

Nicholas bent his head. Their foreheads touched, metal to skin. “I have so much to tell you, Clara. Such a wonderful, terrible story.”

“And you will tell me, as soon as we've won the day. I'll hold you to it. Princes always keep their promises, don't they?”