Chapter 94
“Everyone ready?” Cruxer whispered. They were behind and to the side of the lift, but they would be exposed to the musket fire from the Lightguards as they ran to get into it.
“Maybe the light’s good enough for Breaker to try here?” Teia asked.
“Teia, are you serious with this?” Ben-hadad asked.
“Sorry,” she said.
“We’re ready,” Kip told Cruxer. “Teia, maybe you could … could you use it for all of us?” Kip asked.
“No. I barely know how I use it for myself.” She pulled together the hood over her face and—despite that it had no laces or other visible means of fastening—the cloth cinched together tightly, leaving only her eyes visible. The face shimmered and disappeared, leaving what looked a hole, only her eyes floating against blackness.
Teia turned her back and Kip saw the two disks moving across the cloak. The black passed in front of the white disk like an eclipse. White light flared briefly around the black disk, and then the entire cloak shimmered and Teia disappeared.
The entire squad muttered curses.
“If we get out of this alive, I really want to study that cloak,” Ben-hadad said.
The natural light that usually suffused this chamber was cut off, the windows covered. Clearly, the Lightguards were trying to minimize their handicaps against the Mighty.
The Mighty? Is that really what we’re going to call ourselves?
The light was weak, but it was full-spectrum. With his spectacles, Kip could draft whatever he wanted. But more choices in a limited time didn’t mean you could do everything—it meant that you could do anything, so you probably did nothing, frozen with indecision. How long would it take the Lightguards following them from the stairs to find their way through all the halls and catch up?
So Kip fell back to the old standbys, albeit with far greater proficiency and less waste than he would have before all his training with Karris. He drafted the equivalent of a tower shield of green onto his left arm, and drew still more green, weakly, through his green spectacles. It was slow, but it would have to do.
And suddenly, despite the green he was drafting, he was a coward. He didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to be a target to dozens of men with muskets.
What the hell? Green had always made him invincible, had always made fear foreign.
This is what it is to grow up. It is to live beyond the blind rush of passion, or hate, or green luxin, or battle juice. It is to see what must be done, and to do it, without feeling a great desire or a great hatred or a great love. It is to confront fear, naked. No armor of bombast or machismo. Just duty, and love for one’s fellows. Not love felt, not the love that compelled action without thought, but love chosen deliberately. I am the best person to do this thing, it said, though I may die doing it.
I will go, it said, with clear eyes and no passion, but it was love, love, love all the same.
The drug that was green luxin had no hold on Kip, but he took a deep breath, and ran.
He ran, on tiptoe. He ran, without screaming defiance. He ran as silently as possible. And running in such a way, he ran without being detected, almost all the way to the lift.
A shout rang out as he threw himself into the lift. There was white stone here, lit from the mirrors above, and it gave him green sluggishly, even as he lay down and raised the shield, sideways, making an embankment of green luxin.
The rest of the squad was hot on his heels. Winsen threw a yellow flashbomb, and it hit right in front of the turning Lightguards. Perfect throw, perfect flashbomb. Several of the Lightguards, scared out of their minds, clenched fingers on their triggers. The roar of matchlocks in their ears and resounding magnified off the stone walls only doubled the confusion of the Lightguards, who’d only turned in time to be blinded.
Only one or two of all of them got shots off even vaguely in the direction of the squad. The whine of ricochets sounded off the far walls.
Cruxer leapt over Kip’s shield and threw the counterweights, ignoring the danger, and was about to throw the release to fling them upward when Kip cried, “Cruxer, no! Ben!”
Ben-hadad had gone sprawling. He picked himself up immediately, but fell again. His knee was red, and when he stepped again, it turned a direction a knee shouldn’t turn.
Ferkudi was up in an instant. He hopped up over Kip’s wide shield and ran out. Shots rattled into Kip’s shield, and Kip was frozen. The shield embankment was open luxin, if he let it go, they’d all be vulnerable. They could all die.
This was his part. This, now, in this moment, was the totality of what he could do. If he tried to be a hero, his friends would die. As they might die anyway.
He shook as the Lightguards recovered and more brought their weapons to bear, some aiming at Kip and the others in the lift, and some aiming at Ferkudi leaping out of the lift and Ben-hadad on the floor.
A blunderbuss seemed to appear out of midair, to the side of the crescent of Lightguards. Hammer slapped down, and sparks and fire and molten death shot out, raking across the front line. It could only be Teia. Kip’s eyes widened to sub-red in an instant, and the inane thought floated into his mind: I couldn’t have widened my eyes that fast six months ago. Progress!
He saw Teia flinging the spent blunderbuss into the still-standing Lightguards. Then she hefted the other blunderbuss that she’d balanced against her left leg, and shot the second rank of Lightguards.
One or two shot vaguely in her direction before she discharged that shot, then she was off, legs briefly visible as her cloak swung free of her legs. But none of the Lightguards saw it. The attack from midair was too surprising, too disorienting. They almost broke.
Kip saw the moment yawn open. One more touch, his Guile mind said, and these men will flee.
But he was holding the green shield and he couldn’t—
Ferkudi heaved Ben-hadad into the lift, and Teia—visible now—jumped in a moment after. Cruxer threw the lever.
The lift shot up. It hit the first stop, throwing them all into the air, and ground to a stop. It fell back to the ground.
There were shouts of alarm, pain, injury, weakness, and rage going up from the Lightguards. Kip stood up, dropping the green shield, as Cruxer wrestled to put on more counterweights.
A man was rushing them. Kip drafted a green spike and stabbed him in the face. The Lightguard fell into him, still alive, still fighting. Kip elbowed him across the nose, and he went down. Saw another man rushing them, a blunderbuss in one hand.
Kip shot another green spike but missed as the man slipped on a pool of blood.
The man slid almost into their feet. He didn’t try to stand; instead, he grabbed for the blunderbuss. At this range, he might take out half the squad.
Winsen was on him with a knife in an instant.
The knife went in and out and in and out of the man’s belly, like a tailor rapidly drawing a stitch.
In and out and in and out and in and out and in and out, Winsen wasn’t stopping, and it was cold and it was hot and it was bloody and wet and slick and dirty and gruesome and necessary. The man was still fighting, drawing the end of his blunderbuss down to point at Winsen’s face.
Ferkudi leapt onto the pile and pointed the barrel out toward more charging Lightguards. Winsen yanked the trigger and the blunderbuss fired, and the Lightguards were peppered with whatever had been in the barrel, but were too far away to be killed.
With his one good hand, Big Leo hauled the man off the pile and threw him off the lift. But another Lightguard was already coming, face bloodied but not stopping. Kip shot a hammerfist of green and blew a shower of teeth and blood across himself. The Lightguard fell across the gap, halfway between being in the lift and not in it as Cruxer threw the lever again.
They flew upward, and the Lightguard flew up with them into the lift shaft. He screamed as his body blocked the lift’s ascent, pinched between the floor of the lift and the sides of the lift shaft.
But he only screamed for a moment, as muscle and bone and mail tore. Half a man was left as they flew skyward, and then as they rammed through the one-way doors at each level, and the body got trapped and scraped off at each successive level, less and less. Half, a third, a head and an arm, a helmet with a head in it, and then nothing at all—of what had been a man, ten seconds ago.
Kip fell backward onto his ass, staring horrified, as a man disappeared into the maw of war.
They clanged through level after level. With how much counterweight Cruxer had set, they never paused long. Several times, they saw astounded guards, who never so much as fired their muskets.
And then the squad hit the top level.
None of them had reloaded on the trip up. Inexperience, or trauma, or plain horror overwhelming their training. Kip hadn’t drawn in any more luxin.
There was no Lightguard checkpoint, and the Blackguards recognized them and came running. Cruxer kept his cool, and it was a blessing from Orholam himself, because out of the others, only Winsen kept his, too. Together, they pulled everyone off the lift.
“Lightguards,” Cruxer said to the Blackguards stationed there. “They’re after us. You can’t fight them or you’ll start a war. But please, please, help.”
“Oh, shit!” Kip said. “Where’s Teia?”
She spoke behind him. “I’m right here. Cruxer waited for me to get in the lift.”
The Blackguards on duty were baffled. The woman, Nerra, went immediately to Ben-hadad, though, and started examining his leg.
“What are you talking about?” Little Piper asked. “What’s happening? We’ve seen the wall crystals going crazy, but they aren’t any of our codes, and we couldn’t leave our posts. The commander hasn’t answered any of our queries.”
“Commander Ironfist’s been kicked out of the Blackguard,” Kip said. It occurred to him that he should lie, that lying would make it easier to get these two on their side.
“Orholam, Ben-hadad, what have they done to you?” Nerra said. “Who’s behind this?”
“My grandfather,” Kip said. “He set the Lightguard after us, and he’s the one who relieved Ironfist of his position.”
“What? What?!” Little Piper demanded. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was wide, with a shaved head and intense brown eyes under half-halos of yellow and orange.
“The commander agreed to go quietly. He didn’t want to cause war between the Blackguard and the Lightguard. Said the promachos would take the excuse to eliminate the Blackguard altogether.”
“To hell with that!” Little Piper said. “I’ll, I’ll—”
“Shut up,” Nerra said. “We’ll delay them, young ones. What are you doing?”
“We need to go to the White’s room. Can we?” Kip asked.
They could stop them.
The two Blackguards looked at each other. Some silent understanding went between them. They were in love, Kip saw, some intuitive part of him seeing it from how they understood each other.
“I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but I need to say this,” Little Piper said. “The White’s in there still. She’s dead. You won’t disturb her.”
“Of course,” Cruxer said. “Is Ben-hadad fit to travel? Ben, do you still want to come with us?”
“He’ll never fight again,” Nerra said. She looked at Ben-hadad. “The leg’s ruined. Sorry to say it, but it’s true.”
Ben-hadad shrank. “Can I come? Please?” He turned to Cruxer. “I don’t want to … I can’t be left behind. I’m no Daelos, you understand? This squad is everything to me.”
Nerra nodded, and so did Cruxer, who said, “I’ll carry you if I have to.”
“We’ll buy you as much time as we can without a clash of arms,” Nerra said. “Go, and Orholam shield you.”
They ran down the hall and up the stairs and went past the two Blackguards who stood silent at the White’s door. Kip recognized Gill Greyling, but each Blackguard pretended not to see them.
Kip went out to the balcony. It was still early morning. Orholam’s beard, how was it still early morning? It felt like a thousand years since dawn.
He rummaged through his pack, looking for the card he’d tucked away not half an hour ago. He glanced at the White’s bed, where her corpse lay. He kissed thumb and two fingers and flung a quick blessing at her.
He found the card in his breast pocket. It had been preserved between plates of glass. Kip had nicely broken those in his tumble down the stairs, but the card was undamaged. He drew it out and, while rapidly switching between spectacles and sheathing each as he was done with it in order to draw in all seven colors at once, said, “I have no idea how long this will take me. Just … just defend me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“We’ll hold,” Ferkudi said, and he spoke for them all.
Kip felt, in that moment, an overwhelming love for these people.
He wouldn’t fail them.
Holding the card in his left hand, he drew the colors into his right and touched the five points. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
“Got it,” he said.
He looked up, wondering if any of them would still be alive, if he had done it in time.
“Huh?” Ferkudi asked.
Kip was looking down at his left wrist. The tattoo was back, but it was already fading, as if its colors were connected to the colors he drafted. He looked up. “What do you mean, ‘Huh’?”
“Uh, you didn’t do anything,” Cruxer said.
“What did you see?” Teia asked.
“I … I … I can’t remember,” Kip said.
“What?!” Ben-hadad said. “You mean that was it working? And you don’t remember what it did?”
“Ben, I love you to death, but shut the hell up,” Cruxer said. “Breaker, what do we do?”
“I can’t remember anything—” Kip said.
“We came up here so you could remember nothing?!” Big Leo demanded. He was kind of an asshole when he was in pain.
“It’s outside of time, Big Leo,” Kip said. “It’s—I can’t remember anything right now. But I’ll remember it in the future, I think. Except, except one thing. We have to go upstairs.”
“There is no upstairs. Except the roof,” Cruxer said. “Oh. In for a den, in for a danar. Up to the roof!”
With Ferkudi and Cruxer helping Ben-hadad, they piled out of the room, past the Blackguards, who looked after them, wondering. They went out the door to the stairs up to the rooftop.
“Well, at least those Lightguards are gone,” Big Leo said. “Of course, there’s nothing else up here, either.”
“Big Leo, Winsen, Ferkudi, you guard the door,” Cruxer said. “Kip? Please, please, please tell me you’ve got something.”
“It’s…” Kip squeezed his eyes shut. There had been something. It was about this space. He could almost taste the memories. He knew, somehow, that he had seen all of the White’s life, every decision, every regret, every maneuver, and yet … he couldn’t grab on to it.
Oh, come on! What’s the point in having powers if they don’t come through when you need them?
“Teia,” Kip said. “There’s something here. I’m sure of it.”
“Something? Like, what? Like the entrance to her secret escape tunnel?” Teia asked. “Kip, I don’t think there’s room up here for a tunnel entrance.”
“Teia, I don’t know!”
“It was a tunnel,” Ferkudi said, suddenly excited. “That my parents talked about. I mean, it was a tunnel under the sea. Out to Cannon Island. Tunnel.” He pointed down, as if they weren’t grasping an obvious point. “But, but, I don’t think you’d start a tunnel from up here. Maybe in the basement?”
“Ferk, did you miss the whole convers— You know what? Never mind,” Kip said.
Teia was holding a hand up against the sun, trying to shield her eyes as she flared them open to paryl width, blinking from the intensity of the light.
There was a shout from inside. It was the Blackguards, but Kip knew they were simply doing their best to give Kip and the Mighty a warning.
“Does the door lock?” Cruxer asked.
Winsen shook his head. “Only from the inside. Anyone have arrows? Shit. Anyone know how to draft arrows?”
No one said anything.
Big Leo, arm still in a brace, leaned his weight against the door. “Please tell me they don’t have muskets,” he said. Still in pain from his broken arm, but resigned now.
Resigned to die well. This is what I’ve brought my friends to.
“Breaker,” Teia said. “Your spectacles. Try them. Try them all.”
Kip put on his sub-red spectacles. They were still a wonder, overlaying all the detail of sub-red without making him sacrifice the visible spectrum. Possibly the handiwork of Lucidonius himself. But not helpful. He flipped them back into their case and drew the superviolet, again, more helpful than narrowing his eyes to superviolet himself because he could see the spectra overlaid simultaneously. He looked around, not knowing what he was looking for.
The door rattled and jumped as someone tried to fling it open.
They hadn’t expected resistance. They tried again.
“Ignore that!” Teia said. “What about over here?”
At the door, Big Leo crouched down, still keeping his shoulder braced against the door, but as low as he could.
Two shots rang out, and wood splintered at head and shoulder level. If Leo hadn’t moved, he would have been dead.
Winsen pushed a tiny flashbomb through the hole the musket balls had torn.
“Kip!” Teia said. “I see something!”
Kip looked at the spot she was pointing out. There was something there, barely visible in superviolet. It was the shape of a key. Kip pressed it, hard, and it sank.
Text appeared, burning white in the floor at the very edge of the tower. It was in some language Kip didn’t know. “Uh … anyone read this? What is it?” Kip asked the squad.
Cruxer glanced over. “That’s archaic Parian. It says, um, it’s a formal case, um, something like ‘Would ye fly, o White?’” Another key appeared, larger.
“Yes!” Kip said. “That’s it!” There was another key next to the text. He pushed it down with his whole hand.
A panel slid back, and a long lever appeared. Kip looked at Teia, excited.
Wood exploded within a breath of Big Leo’s face. Shrapnel tore his cheek. “What are you waiting for?” he bellowed.
Kip heaved on the lever. He pulled it all the way back until it touched stone. They heard something grate and grind. They all looked around, expecting a hole to appear.
“Where’s the entrance? You think it’s some kind of chute?” Teia asked.
“Uh, there’s a whaddaythingit over here,” Ferkudi said, pointing.
On the inside of one of the crenellations, a bolt had appeared. Wrapped around the eye bolt was woven a steel cable that disappeared into the stones at their feet, which were glowing.
“Don’t stand on it!” Teia said.
“It … it ratchets, the lever,” Ben-hadad said.
“What?” Teia asked.
But Kip got it. He threw the lever forward and pulled it back again.
“Not much time left!” Big Leo shouted.
“Not acceptable!” Cruxer yelled. “Light ’em up!”
Who yells, ‘Not acceptable’?
With each throw of the lever, more steel cable popped out of the ground, slowly crossing the entire diameter of the tower. “What is it doing?” Kip asked. “Where’s the damn hole? There’s got to be some kind of chute, right?”
He heard the sounds of luxin being flung and shouts and musket fire and the wood door disintegrating, but he had time for none of it. His world had shrunk to this duty, this place. The steel cable finally popped fully free of the floor and wrapped over what looked like a pulley on a post at the edge of the tower.
Kip pulled it again and this time it stopped. He pushed the lever and pulled back with no resistance. It was finished, whatever it was. “That’s it!” he said. “What do we got?”
“That’s no chute,” Ferkudi said, looking off the edge.
“Captain! Can you hold the door without Ferkudi? I need him!” Ben-hadad said.
“Yes! Go!” Cruxer said. He had his spectacles on and was throwing luxin through the holes in the door. The door was barely hanging by its hinges, splintered and torn by musket balls.
Suddenly, there was a lull.
“Ferkudi, carry me over there,” Ben-hadad said.
Ferkudi did it immediately, joining Kip, who was standing at the edge. The steel cable had been freed not just from the top of the tower, but from the sides of it as well, buried under mortar and stone for hundreds of years. It had only been freed from the top ten paces or so of the tower.
“Orholam have mercy. It’s broken,” Teia said. “Look.”
The stones at her feet, directly under the post, had some text in archaic Parian.
“What’s it say?” Kip asked. “Anyone? Cruxer’s busy.”
“Says, ‘The Isle’ or ‘The Island.’ Actually I’m not really sure of the difference between those,” Ferkudi said.
Of course Ferkudi knew archaic Parian. Of course he did.
They looked out to Cannon Island, which was almost a straight shot west out into the sea from here. “There’s a post all the way over there.”
He was right. A perfectly matching post had popped up on Cannon Island. It, too, appeared to have steel cable wrapped over it, pointed toward them.
“What’s the point?” Kip asked. “Is it supposed to be an anchor for magic? Who can draft over that kind of distance?”
“No, no, no,” Ben-hadad said. “They’re supposed to connect by steel cable. But that would require a vast counterweight to take up all the slack and keep the cables taut.”
“Need some help over here!” Cruxer shouted. The battle had resumed. Cruxer was doing his best to reinforce the door with luxin, but it was a losing battle. The blue just shattered or dissolved when hit with musket balls. Big Leo’s red and sub-red weren’t any help at all.
“I’ll go,” Ferkudi said. He pulled two powder horns out of his pack and ran over to join them.
Ben-hadad said, “The counterweight. It would have to be huge, see, to tear the cable free … Ah! Look!” He pointed to the side where another crenellation had popped open to reveal a compartment filled with some machines of pulleys and belts. “You snap one of those onto the cable, and ride the cable all the way to Cannon Island.”
“The cable doesn’t go to Cannon Island!” Kip said. “It doesn’t go anywhere!”
“Something’s wrong, then. We have to release the counterweight.”
They were interrupted by Cruxer shouting, “We need shot for the blunderbuss! Anyone have anything we can use?”
Usually, you could put nearly anything into a blunderbuss: rocks, nails, musket balls, whatever. But the top of the tower was bare. Any luxin short of perfectly crafted solid yellow wouldn’t survive the shot, so that was out.
“Coins,” Kip said. “Our pay! Can’t spend it dead.”
They all looked at him for one moment like he was insane. And then they all tossed their coin sticks to Big Leo, who was sitting on the ground, back braced against the door. He popped the danars and quintars off the coin sticks and into the barrel.
The top third of the door was gone.
“They’re about to rush us,” Cruxer said, peeking through a hole. “Hurry, please.”
“Hurrying!” Big Leo said, stuffing pieces of a torn handkerchief as wadding down the barrel.
Kip ran back to the lever and pulled it again. Twisted, pulled, turned, and there! It grabbed and he heaved on it.
He could feel something give within the tower, and suddenly the steel cable was zipping down. He turned his head and saw that the entire crenellation, a huge slab of rock, had broken away from the side of the tower and tumbled off. Suspended on another post just feet away from the wall, the counterweight plunged downward, pulling the cable taut with incredible force.
Kip ran to the island side of the Prism’s Tower to see his handiwork.
Ben-hadad was downcast. “And this,” he said, “is why engineers have to think of everything.”
The steel cable had pulled perfectly out of its hidden places along the side of the Prism’s Tower, and along the top of the walkway in the air between the Prism’s Tower, and the sub-red tower and the tiny strip of land before it came to the water. But then, instead of connecting straight to the far post on Cannon Island far away, the line went straight into the water of the bay.
“They laid that line along the sea floor hundreds of years ago,” Ben-hadad said. “But since then, it’s grown over with coral and Orholam knows what. The entire sea floor could have shifted. The counterweight isn’t heavy enough now.”
Kip looked at the angle of the line. If they rode the line, they would plunge into the water at incredible speeds, not even halfway to Cannon Island. The drop was too steep. They wouldn’t survive it.
They heard the roar of the blunderbuss as Cruxer fired, but couldn’t see anything beyond the broken door and the black smoke.
“We could … maybe draft brakes onto the mechanisms,” Ben-hadad offered. “But those of us who are injured … Breaker, there’s no way I can make that swim.”
“I hate to criticize when we’re on the verge of death and all,” Teia said, “but what good does it do us to get to Cannon Island?”
“It keeps us alive for another half hour?” Kip said. He scowled.
“They’re withdrawing!” Cruxer shouted.
“The ship is on the other side of Big Jasper,” Teia said. “You think we can make it down the line, row from there, get to Big Jasper, and run all the way to the docks before any of five hundred eighty-two Lightguards can intercept us?”
“It would be less than five hundred eighty-two now,” Ferkudi said. “We’ve killed at least—”
“They’ll catch us easily, and without a choke point like the door here to hold them off, we’re dead.”
“Teia, not helping!” Kip said. “Wait! Teia! You’re a genius!”
“I am?”
“Teia, get over here!” Kip said. He was flipping through his spectacles, one at a time, searching. “Paryl!”
“They’re coming! They’ve got some kind of shield wall!” Winsen said.
“What are we looking for, Breaker?” Teia asked.
“The script, it says, ‘To the Island,’” Kip said. “Why label a destination if there’s only one destination?”
“I could kiss you!” Teia said.
They looked at each other, and both looked away.
Winsen fired a musket. “Got one! But it’s not enough. They’ve got reinforcements!”
“There,” Teia said. She ran over, pushed a second key, and script and another key appeared. Kip pushed it, not worrying about the translation. They were running out of time. Pulled open the compartment and started ratcheting the lever.
“Faster!” Cruxer said.
“No, wait!” Ben-hadad said.
Kip stopped.
Ben-hadad said hurriedly, “This wire goes all the way to the southeast side of Big Jasper. It’s got to go right along a bunch of streets that are packed with people today! If this cable comes ripping up out of the streets with all this weight behind it, we could kill dozens. You have to give them time to get out of the way.”
“This is the Lightbringer’s life we’re saving!” Cruxer shouted. “Do it! That’s an order!” He was reloading the blunderbuss as fast as he could.
Kip heaved, and the crenellation-counterweight split off the side of the building and fell. This one was far larger than the other. It plunged and the steel line hummed, and then the counterweight crashed into the ground near the base of the Prism’s Tower far below—and through the ground, into the vast underground practice yards, as it had apparently been designed to do.
Kip only hoped no one had been killed below.
From his vantage, Kip couldn’t see what had happened in the city. He wondered if he’d just killed people. But before he could get to the edge to see, he had to make it past the line of fire of the wheeled shield wall that the Lightguards were pushing forward. In moments, they would have it all the way to the door, and their field of fire would expand to encompass most of the top of the tower.
Flipping on his red spectacles as he ran to take a position next to Cruxer, Kip drew red in and in, until he wanted to combust. He threw his hand forward and shot red out in a stream, as hard and concentrated as he could manage.
The stream splattered over and under and around the wheeled shield wall and deep into the hallway.
The Lightguards knew what red luxin meant. Five of the men who’d been pushing the shield wall forward panicked and bolted.
Panic is contagious, but not all are susceptible. A big man stepped up, smearing some of the pyrejelly off his face. He lifted his matchlock—but never got the shot off. When the burning slow match was brought close, the red luxin on his face ignited.
He shot the musket into the ceiling and the sound of a ricochet whine preceded the sound of rapidly spreading fire. He screamed.
Kip ran past the door and flames and found Ben-hadad fitting the wheel mechanisms over the steel cable.
“The line didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “It came off the top of the city walls. Ingenious. Who’s first?”
“I’ll go,” Kip said.
“Breaker’s not going first,” Cruxer said. “Thing may not work. I go first. Winsen, you’re second. Give me a ten count. Might need to fight at the other end. Then Ferkudi. Then the wounded: Big Leo, you first, then Ben-hadad. Then Kip. Teia, you bring up the rear.”
“Anything special I need to do?” Cruxer asked Ben-hadad.
“Just hold on,” Ben-hadad said. He snapped the mechanism onto the line. Cruxer stepped quickly onto the iron sides of the inverted T and gripped the post in his hand. “But I think—”
Cruxer hopped off the side of the Prism’s Tower and flew down the line. He just kept going faster and faster. The first section was nearly a free fall. In ten seconds, he was nearly beyond the sea and over Big Jasper.
“I was going to say,” Ben-hadad said, “that it would be about ten times safer to sit on the crossbar. Straddle it.”
Winsen did, sitting right on the edge. “If this racks my stones,” he started, but he didn’t get to complete the threat, because Big Leo pushed him off.
Ferkudi went next, and then Big Leo, who handed Kip a pistol. “Won’t be accurate for shit. It’s loaded with a danar. But might be better than nothing.”
Ben-hadad made sure Kip was paying attention to how the mechanism locked onto the cable as he prepped his own.
“Uh, is that the last one?” Kip asked.
“No, no, there’s a whole extra compartment of them,” Ben-hadad said. Then he went.
Teia ran over to the other compartment while Kip laboriously set up his own wheel, checking and double-checking it.
“Breaker?” Teia called out. There was something tight in her voice. “Kip?”
He looked over. She pulled a wheel out of the case. It was so corroded it was hardly recognizable. “What’s that?” he said. He didn’t want to understand.
“There was a hole in the compartment. It’s been getting rain in there for years, decades maybe.”
“Well, grab another one,” Kip said. “And hurry, Teia, I hear voices in the hall. They got drafters to put out the fires.”
“Breaker. They’re all ruined.”
They looked at each other. “You take this one,” Kip said. “I’ll draft a copy of it, and be right after you.”
“You’re not that good a drafter, and we both know it.”
“I can do it.”
“Kip.”
“We don’t have time to fight, Teia.”
“Kip! I’ll stay. I can go invisible—” She started grabbing the hood to pull it up.
“There’ll be dozens and dozens of them. They’re all going to come flooding out at once. Dammit, Teia! They’ll find you by touch.”
“Breaker, Goss died to get you out of here. Don’t throw that away.”
“Don’t you turn this on me!”
“Don’t turn it on me! We have our orders.”
“You know the thing about fat kids?”
“What? What?!”
“When we don’t want to move, we ain’t gonna.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Come here, I just had an idea.” He flipped on his yellow spectacles. “We both go.”
He sat, straddling the inverted T, not far from the edge, but not so close she could just push him and make him go.
“There’s no way it’s going to hold both of us,” Teia said.
“Lap, now!”
Teia grabbed the center bar and swung one leg around it, straddling the T and Kip from the opposite side.
Her eyes went wide as she settled into place, but not from sitting on his lap. “Kip! Go! Kip, go, go, go! Aram!”
But instead of helping him push off, she was leaning to Kip’s left, the same leg he was trying to rock forward. He realized she was trying to draw the pistol he’d tucked behind the lens holster, but it was trapped underneath them.
A musket fired behind Kip, and Kip felt something shift. He hadn’t been hit. He looked at Teia; she hadn’t been hit either, but she was looking up. He followed her gaze. The bullet had hit the mechanism where the inverted T connected to the wheel. As Kip and Teia watched, the wheel rolled down the cable without them.
They were now tangled together, sitting on a bar completely unconnected to the cable.
“Would you believe I was aiming for your head?” Aram said. “Lucky miss, for you, huh? Thing is, I’m a lot better with a spear.”
One thousand one. One thousand two. Kip had never successfully drafted solid yellow luxin in less than a six count. Every time he went faster, his yellow broke.
Teia finally reached Kip’s pistol. She tugged on it, but it was held in place. She pulled harder. Gave up. She started to stand—
One thousand three. One thousand—
Kip hugged Teia to himself, and hopped off the edge of the tower.
Teia hugged him hard with her arms and legs as they fell, eyes squeezed tight shut. They fell and fell—and then swooshed out over the Chromeria’s wall, and out over the sea, together.
She looked up, stunned. Kip had drafted a simple loop of solid yellow luxin over the cable, and doubled the bar they were sitting on. He swapped spectacles and drafted a steady stream of orange for lubrication where yellow luxin scraped over steel cable. They were emitting a constant stream of yellow sparks, but it would hold. It would hold long enough.
Teia looked at Kip, wide-eyed. Then she squeezed him hard again, but this time with glee. In the perfect light of early morning, they flew over the sea and shoreline. They flew over Sapphire Bay. They flew over the morning parades and luxin fireworks. Teia waved to the bewildered crowds, and many waved back, laughing.
Whites fly, too, indeed.
The cable passed over the east side of Big Jasper, high over houses and warehouses and ships and the wall.
Teia looked at Kip, and he looked at her. She was glowing with joy and morning light, her skin radiant, her eyes holding a million colors Kip had never seen. And they were flying, and they were holding each other, and they were safe, and they were alive, and they were breathing pure glory, and Orholam’s Eye gazed on them with the approval that only young lovers know, and in that moment Kip knew the difference between love and infatuation, and love and hunger, and love and the longing not to go unloved. And he wanted to know nothing more than this, and he wanted this moment to freeze forever and thought to cease.
He kissed her. And she kissed him. And it was infatuation, and it was hunger, and it was longing to be loved, and it was an all-consuming fire so hot it devoured worry and loneliness and fear and time and being and thought itself. They kissed, embracing, flying, and for a hundred heartbeats, there was no war, no death, no pain, nothing hard, nothing terrible, nothing but warmth and acceptance.
And as they slowed, nearing the end of their flight, when Kip pulled away from her at last, and gazed again into her eyes, he knew he was lost in her. And he knew at last the difference between love and necessity.