chapter 18 For This Alone
For this alone on Death I wreak
The wrath that garners in my heart:
He put our lives so far apart
We cannot hear each other speak.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam A.H.H."
Tessa stood at the edge of a precipice in a country she did not know. The hills about her were green, dropping off sharply into cliffs that sheered down toward a blue sea. Seabirds wheeled and cawed above her. A gray path wound like a snake along the edge of the cliff top. Just ahead of her, on the path, stood Will.
He wore black gear, and over it a long black riding coat, spattered with mud at the hem as if he had been walking a long way. He was without hat or gloves, and his dark hair was tousled by the wind off the sea. The wind lifted Tessa's hair as well, bringing the scent of salt and brine, of the wet things that grow at the edge of the sea, a smell that reminded her of her sea voyage on the Main.
"Will!" she called out. There was something so lonely about the figure he cut, like Tristan watching across the Irish Sea for the ship that would bear Isolde back to him. Will did not turn at the sound of her voice, only raised his arms, his coat lifting in the wind, sweeping out behind him like wings.
Fear rose up in her heart. Isolde had come for Tristan, but it had been too late. He had died of grief. "Will!" she called again.
He stepped forward, off the cliff. She raced to the edge and looked down, but there was nothing there, only plunging gray-blue water and white surf. The tide seemed to carry his voice to her with each surge of water. "Awake, Tessa. Awake."
"Awake, Miss Gray. Miss Gray!"
Tessa jerked upright. She had fallen asleep in the chair by the fireplace in her small prison; a coarse blue blanket was drawn over her, though she did not remember procuring it. The room burned with torchlight and the coals of the fire were low. It was impossible to tell if it was day or night.
Mortmain stood before her, and beside him was an automaton. It was one of the more humanoid that Tessa had seen. It was even clothed, as not many of them were, this one in a military tunic and trousers. The clothes made the head that rose above the stiff collar look even more uncanny, with its too-smooth features and bald metallic scalp. And its eyes-she knew they were glass and crystal, the irises red in the firelight, but the way they seemed to fix on her-
"You're cold," Mortmain said.
Tessa exhaled, and her breath came out in a white puff. "The warmth of your hospitality leaves something to be desired."
He smiled, thin-lipped. "Very amusing." He himself was wearing a heavy astrakhan coat over a gray suit, ever the businessman. "Miss Gray, I do not wake you lightly. I came because I wish you to see what your kind assistance with my father's memories has allowed me to accomplish." He gestured proudly at the automaton by his side.
"Another automaton?" Tessa said without interest.
"How rude of me." Mortmain's eyes flicked to the creature. "Introduce yourself."
The creature's mouth opened; Tessa caught a flash of brass. It spoke. "I am Armaros," it said. "For a billion years I rode the winds of the great abysses between the worlds. I fought Jonathan Shadowhunter on the plains of Brocelind. For a thousand more years I lay trapped within the Pyxis. Now my master has freed me and I serve him."
Tessa rose, the blanket sliding to her feet, unheeded. The automaton was watching her. Its eyes-its eyes were full of a dark intelligence, a consciousness that no automaton she had seen before had ever possessed.
"What is this?" she said in a whisper.
"An automaton body animated by a demon spirit. Downworlders already have their ways of capturing demon energies and using them. I used them myself to power the automatons you've seen before. But Armaros and his brothers are different. They are demons with the carapaces of automatons. They can think and reason. They are not easily outwitted. And they are very difficult to kill."
Armaros reached across its body-Tessa could not help but note that it moved fluidly, smoothly, without the jerkiness of the automatons she had seen before. It moved like a person. It drew the sword that hung at its side and handed it to Mortmain. The blade was covered in the runes that Tessa had become so familiar with over the last months, the runes that decorated the blades of all Shadowhunter weapons. The runes that made them Shadowhunter weapons. The runes that were deadly to demons. Armaros should barely have been able to look upon the blade, much less hold it.
Her stomach clenched. The demon gave the sword to Mortmain, who handled it with the precision of a longtime naval officer. He spun the blade, swept it forward, and drove it into the demon's chest.
There was a sound of tearing metal. Tessa was used to seeing automatons crumple when attacked, or spurt black fluid, or stagger. But the demon stood its ground, unblinking and unmoving, like a lizard in the sun. Mortmain twisted the hilt savagely, then jerked the weapon free.
Its blade crumbled to ash, like a log burned away in a fire.
"You see," said Mortmain. "They are an army designed to destroy Shadowhunters."
Armaros was the only automaton Tessa had ever seen smile; she did not even know their faces had been built to accomplish such a purpose. The demon said, "They have destroyed many of my kind. It will be a pleasure to kill them all."
Tessa swallowed hard but tried not to let the Magister see it. His gaze was flicking back and forth from her to the demon automaton, and it was hard for her to say which he looked more delighted to lay eyes on. She wanted to scream, to throw herself at him and claw his face. But the invisible wall lay between them, shimmering slightly, and she knew she could not breach it.
Oh, you are to be more than his bride, Miss Gray, Mrs. Black had said. You are to be the ruin of the Nephilim. That is why you were created.
"The Shadowhunters will not be so easily destroyed," she said. "I have seen them cut apart your automatons. Perhaps these cannot be felled by their runed weapons, but any blade can shear metal and cut wires."
Mortmain shrugged. "Shadowhunters are not used to battling creatures against whom their runed weapons are useless. It will slow them. And there are countless of these automatons. It will be like trying to beat back the tide." He cocked his head to the side. "You see, now, the genius of what I have invented? But I must thank you, Miss Gray, for that last piece of the puzzle. I thought perhaps even you might be ... admiring ... of what we have created together."
Admiring? She looked in his eyes for mockery, but there was something of a sincere question there, curiosity mixed with the coldness. She thought of how long it must have been since he had had the praise of another human being, and took a deep breath.
"You are obviously a great inventor," she said.
Mortmain smiled, pleased.
Tessa was aware of the gaze of the mechanical demon on her, its tension and readiness, but she was more aware of Mortmain. Her heart was beating hard inside her chest. She seemed, as she had in her dream, poised on the edge of a precipice. To speak to Mortmain like this was chancy, and she would either fall or fly. But she must take the chance. "I see why you have brought me here," she said. "And it is not just because of your father's secrets."
There was anger in his eyes, but also a certain confusion. She was not behaving as he had expected her to behave. "What do you mean?"
"You are lonely," she said. "You have surrounded yourself with creatures that are not real, that do not live. We see our own souls in the eyes of others. How long has it been since you have seen that you have a soul?"
Mortmain's eyes narrowed. "I had a soul. It has been burned away by what I have dedicated my life to: the pursuit of justice and recompense."
"Do not seek revenge and call it justice."
The demon gave a low chuckle, though there was contempt in it, as if he were watching the antics of a kitten. "You would let her speak to you like that, Master?" he said. "I can cut out her tongue for you, silence her forever."
"It would serve nothing to mutilate her. She has powers you know not of," said Mortmain, his eyes still on Tessa. "There is an old saying in China-perhaps your beloved fiance familiarized you with it-that states, 'A man may not live under the same Heaven with the slayer of his father.' I shall erase the Shadowhunters from under Heaven; they will not longer live upon the earth. Do not seek to appeal to my better nature, Tessa, for I have none."
Tessa could not help herself-she thought of A Tale of Two Cities, of Lucie Manette's appeals to Sydney Carton's better nature. She had always thought of Will as Sydney, consumed by sin and despair against his own better knowledge, even against his own desire. But Will was a good man, a much better one than Carton had ever been. And Mortmain was barely a man at all. It was not his better nature she appealed to but his vanity: All men thought of themselves as good in the end, surely. No one believed themselves a villain. She took a breath. "Surely that is not so-surely you might again be worthy and good. You have done what you set out to do. You have brought life and intelligence to these-these Infernal Devices of yours. You have created that which might destroy the Shadowhunters. All your life you have pursued justice because you believed the Shadowhunters were corrupt and vicious. Now, if you stay your hand, you win the greatest victory. You show that you are better than they."
She searched Mortmain's face with her eyes. Surely there was some hesitation there-surely the thin lips were shaking slightly, surely there was the tension of doubt in his shoulders?
His mouth quirked into a smile. "You think, then, that I can be a better man? And if I were to do as you say, to stay my hand, you would have me believe that you would stay with me out of admiration, that you would not return to the Shadowhunters?"
"Why, yes, Mr. Mortmain. I swear it." She swallowed against the bitterness in her throat. If she had to remain with Mortmain in order to save Will and Jem, to save Charlotte and Henry and Sophie, she would do it. "I believe you can find your better self; I believe we all can."
His thin lips turned up at the corners. "It is afternoon already, Miss Gray," he said. "I did not wish to wake you earlier. Come with me now, outside the mountain. Come and see this day's work, for there is something that I wish to show you."
A finger of ice touched her spine. She straightened. "And what is that?"
His smile spread across his face. "What I have been waiting for."
To: Consul Josiah Wayland
From: Inquisitor Victor Whitelaw
Josiah: Forgive my informality, for I write in haste. I am certain that this will not be the only letter you will receive on this subject; in fact, it is likely not even the first. I myself have already received many. Each touches upon the same question that burns in my mind: Is Charlotte Branwell's information correct? For if so, it seems to me that there is a more than likely chance that the Magister is indeed in Wales. I know of your doubts in the veracity of William Herondale, but we both knew his father. A hasty soul, and too greatly ruled by his passions, but a more honest man you could not find. I do not think the younger Herondale a liar.
Regardless, as a result of Charlotte's message, the Clave is in chaos. I insist that we hold a dedicated Council meeting immediately. If we do not, the trust of the Shadowhunters in their Consul and their Inquisitor will be irrevocably eroded. I leave the announcement of the meeting in your hands, but this is not a request. Send out the call for the Council, or I shall resign my position and let it be known why.
Victor Whitelaw
Will was awoken by screams.
Years of training made themselves known instantly: He was on the floor in a crouch before he was even properly awake. Glancing around, he saw that the small room of the inn was empty save for himself, and the furniture-narrow bed and plain deal table, barely visible in the shadows-was undisturbed.
The screams came again, louder. They were emanating from outside the window. Will rose to his feet, crossed the room soundlessly, and twitched one of the curtains back to look out.
He barely remembered walking into town, leading Balios behind him, the horse clopping slowly in exhaustion. A small Welsh town, like other small Welsh towns, unremarkable in any particular way. He had found the local public house easily and turned Balios over to the ministrations of the stable-boy, ordering the horse rubbed down and fed a hot bran mash to revive him. The fact that he spoke Welsh had seemed to relax the innkeeper, and he had been shown quickly to a private room, where he had collapsed almost immediately, fully clothed, onto the bed and fallen into dreamless sleep.
The moon was bright above, its position indicating that it was not yet late in the evening. A gray haze seemed to hang over the town. For a moment Will thought it was mist. Then, inhaling, he realized it was smoke. Patches of bright red leaped up among the houses in the town. He narrowed his eyes. Figures were darting back and forth within the shadows. More screams-a flash that could only be blades-
He was out the door with his boots half-laced in barely a moment, seraph blade in hand. He pounded down the steps and into the main room of the inn. It was dark and cold-there was no fire, and several of the windows had been smashed in, letting in the chill night air. Glass littered the floor like chunks of ice. The door hung open, and as Will slipped through it, he saw that the upper hinges were nearly torn out of their mooring, as if someone had tried to rip the door free....
He slipped out the door and round the side of the inn, where the stables were. The smell of smoke hung thicker here, and he darted ahead-and nearly tripped over a humped figure on the ground. He dropped to his knees. It was the stable-boy, his throat cut, the ground under him a sodden mess of blood and dirt. His eyes were open, staring, his skin already cold. Will swallowed back bile and straightened up.
He moved toward the stables mechanically, his mind racing over the possibilities. A demon attack? Or had he stumbled into the middle of something non-supernatural, some feud between townsfolk, or God only knew what? No one seemed to be looking for him in particular, that much was clear.
He could hear Balios's anxious whickering as he let himself into the stable. It appeared undisturbed, from the plaster ceiling to the cobbled floor crisscrossed with drainage ditches. No other horses were stabled there that night, which was lucky, for the moment he opened the stall door, Balios plunged forward, nearly knocking Will over. Will was only just able to dart out of the way as the horse hurtled past him and out the door.
"Balios!" Will swore and took off after his horse, pounding around the side of the inn and into the main road of the town.
He stopped dead. The street was in chaos. Bodies lay crumpled, discarded at the side of the road like so much rubbish. Homes stood with their doors ripped open, windows smashed in. People were running in and out of the shadows haphazardly, screaming and calling for one another. Several of the houses were burning. As Will stared in horror, he saw a family spill from the door of a burning house, the father in a nightshirt, coughing and choking, a woman behind him holding the hand of a small girl.
They had barely staggered into the street when shapes rose up out of the shadows. Moonlight sparked off metal.
Automatons.
They moved fluidly, without faltering or jerkiness. They wore clothes-a motley assortment of military uniforms, some recognizable to Will and some not. But their faces were bare metal, as were their hands, which gripped long-bladed swords. There were three of them; one, in a torn red army tunic, moved ahead, laughing-laughing?-as the father of the family tried to push his wife and daughter behind him, stumbling over the bloody cobblestones of the road.
It was all over in moments, too fast even for Will to move. Blades flashed, and three more bodies joined the heaps in the streets.
"That's it," said the automaton in the ragged tunic. "Burn their houses and smoke them out like rats. Kill them when they run-" It raised its head, and seemed to see Will. Even across the space that separated them, Will felt the force of that gaze.
Will raised his seraph blade. "Nakir."
The shimmer of the blade blazed up, illuminating the street, a beam of white light amid the red of flames. Through blood and fire Will saw the automaton in the red tunic stride toward him. A longsword was gripped in its left hand. The hand was metal, jointed, articulate; it curved around the hilt of the blade like a human hand.
"Nephilim," the creature said, stopping a mere foot from Will. "We did not expect your kind here."
"Clearly," Will said. He took a step forward and rammed the seraph blade into the automaton's chest.
There was a faint sizzling sound, as of bacon frying in a pan. As the automaton gazed down in bemusement, Nakir crumbled away to ash, leaving Will's hand clutched around a vanished hilt.
The automaton chuckled, raising its gaze to Will. Its eyes crackled with life and intelligence, and Will knew with a sinking in his heart that he was looking at something he had never seen before-not just a creature that could turn a seraph blade to ash but a kind of machine that had will and cleverness and strategy enough to burn a village to the ground in order to murder the inhabitants as they fled.
"And now you see," said the demon, for that was what it was, standing before him. "Nephilim, all these years you have driven us from this world with your runed blades. Now we have bodies that your weapons will not work on, and this world will be ours."
Will sucked in his breath as the demon raised the longsword. He took a step back- The blade swung over and down- He ducked away, just as something hurtled alongside him in the road, something huge and black that reared and kicked and knocked the automaton aside.
Balios.
Will reached up, blindly scrabbling for his horse's mane. The demon sprang up from the mud and leaped for him, blade flashing, just as Balios bolted forward, Will swinging himself up and over onto the horse's back. They plunged down the cobblestone street together, Will crouched down low on Balios, the wind tearing through his hair and drying the wetness on his face-whether it was blood or tears, he didn't know.
Tessa sat on the floor of her room in Mortmain's stronghold, staring numbly into the fire.
The flames played over her hands, the blue dress she wore. Both were stained with blood. She did not know how it had happened; the skin at her wrist was ragged, and she had some memory of an automaton seizing her there, tearing her skin with its sharp metal fingers as she tried to break away.
She could not rid her mind of the images that dominated it-the memories of the destruction of the village in the valley. She had been taken there blindfolded, carried by automatons, before being unceremoniously dumped onto an outcropping of gray rock with a view directly down into the town.
"Watch," Mortmain had said, not looking at her, only gloating. "Watch, Miss Gray, and then speak to me of redemption."
Tessa had stood prisoned, an automaton holding her from behind, a hand over her mouth, Mortmain murmuring softly under his breath the things he would do to her if she dared to look away from the village. She had watched helplessly as the automatons had marched into the town, cutting down innocent men and women in the streets. The moon had risen tinged red as the clockwork army had methodically set fire to house after house, slaughtering the families as they poured forth in confusion and terror.
And Mortmain had laughed.
"You see now," he had said. "These creatures, these creations, they are capable of thought and reason and strategy. Like humans. And yet they are indestructible. Look, there, at that fool with the rifle."
Tessa had not wanted to look, but she had had no choice. She had watched, dry-eyed and grim, as a distant figure had raised a rifle to defend himself. The blasts had knocked some of the automatons back but had not disabled them. They had kept coming at him, knocking his rifle from his hand, pushing him down into the street.
And then they had torn him apart.
"Demons," Mortmain had murmured. "They are savage and they love to destroy."
"Please," Tessa had choked. "Please, no more, no more. I shall do whatever you desire, but please, spare the village."
Mortmain had chuckled dryly. "Clockwork creatures have no hearts, Miss Gray," he'd said. "They do not have mercy, any more than fire or water do. You might as well beg a flood or a forest fire to cease its destruction."
"I am not begging them," she'd said. From the corner of her eye, she'd thought she'd seen a black horse pounding through the streets of the village, a rider on its back. Someone escaping the carnage, she'd prayed. "I am begging you."
He'd turned his cold eyes on her, and they'd been as empty as the sky. "There is no mercy in my heart either. You appealed, tiresomely, to my better self earlier. I brought you here to show you the futility of such action. I have no better self to appeal to; it was burned away years ago."
"But I have done what you asked," she'd said desperately. "There is no need for this, not for me-"
"It is not for you," he'd said, flicking his gaze away from her. "The automatons had to be tested before they were sent into battle. That is simple science. They have intelligence now. Strategy. Nothing can stand before them."
"They will turn on you, then."
"They will not. Their lives are linked to mine. If I die, so are they destroyed. They must protect me to endure." His look had been cold and faraway. "Enough. I brought you here to show you that I am what I am, and you will accept it. Your clockwork angel protects your life, but the lives of other innocents are in my hands-in your hands. Do not test me, and there will not be a second such village. I wish to hear no more tiresome protests."
Your clockwork angel protects your life. She put her hand on it now, feeling the familiar ticking beneath her fingers. She closed her eyes, but terrible images lived behind her eyelids. She saw in her mind the Nephilim driven before the automatons as the villagers had been, Jem torn apart by clockwork monsters, Will stabbed through with metal blades, Henry and Charlotte burning ...
Her hand tightened savagely around the angel, and she tore it from her throat, casting it to the uneven rock floor just as a log fell in the fire, sending up a spitting column of red sparks. In their illumination she saw the palm of her left hand, saw the faint scar of the burn she had given herself the day she had told Will she was engaged to Jem.
As it had then, her hand went to the fireplace poker. She lifted it, feeling its weight in her hand. The fire had climbed higher. She saw the world through a golden haze as she raised the poker and brought it down on the clockwork angel.
Iron though the poker was, it burst into metallic powder, a cloud of shining filaments that sifted to the floor, dusting the surface of the clockwork angel, which lay, untouched and undamaged, on the ground before her knees.
And then the angel began to shift and change. Its wings trembled, and its closed eyelids opened on bits of whitish quartz. From them poured thin beams of whitish light. Like in paintings of the star over Bethlehem, the light rose and rose, radiating spikes of light. Slowly it began to coalesce into a shape-the form of an angel.
It was a shimmering blur of light so bright, it was difficult to look at directly. Tessa could see, through the light, the faint outline of something like a man. She could see eyes that were without iris or pupil-inset bits of crystal that gleamed in the firelight. The angel's wings were broad, spreading out from its shoulders, each feather tipped with gleaming metal. Its hands were folded over the hilt of a graceful sword.
Its blank shining eyes rested on her. Why do you try to destroy me? Its voice was sweet, echoing in her mind like music. I protect you.
She thought of Jem suddenly, propped on his bed of pillows, his face pale and gleaming. There is more to life than living. "It is not you I seek to destroy, but myself."
But why would you do that? Life is a gift.
"I seek to do right," she said. "In keeping me alive you are allowing great evil to exist."
Evil. The musical voice was thoughtful. I have been so long in my clockwork prison that I have forgotten good and evil.
"Clockwork prison?" Tessa whispered. "But how can an angel be prisoned?"
It was John Thaddeus Shade who imprisoned me. He caught my soul inside a spell and trapped it within this mechanical body.
"Like the Pyxis," Tessa said. "Only entrapping an angel instead of a demon."
I am an angel of the divine, said the angel, hovering before her. I am brother to the Sijil, Kurabi, and the Zurah, the Fravashis and Dakinis.
"And-is this your true form? Is this what you look like?"
You see here only a fraction of what I am. In my true form I am deadly glory. Mine was the freedom of Heaven, before I was trapped and bound to you.
"I am sorry," she whispered.
You are not the one to blame. You did not imprison me. Our spirits are bound, it is true, but even as I protected you in the womb, I knew you were blameless.
"My guardian angel."
Few can claim a single angel who guards them. But you can.
"I don't want to claim you," Tessa said. "I want to die on my own terms, not be forced to live on Mortmain's."
I cannot let you die. The angel's voice was full of grief. Tessa was reminded of Jem's violin, playing out the music of his heart. It is my mandate.
Tessa raised her head. The firelight struck through the angel like sunlight through crystal, casting a radiance of color against the walls of the cave. This was no foul contraption; this was goodness, twisted and bent to Mortmain's will, but in its nature divine. "When you were an angel," she said, "what was your name?"
My name, said the angel, was Ithuriel.
"Ithuriel," Tessa whispered, and held out her hand to the angel, as if she could reach him, comfort him somehow. But her fingers met only empty air. The angel shimmered and faded, leaving behind only a glow, a starburst of light against the inside of her eyelids.
A wave of cold struck Tessa, and she jerked upright, her eyes flying open. She was half-lying on the cold stone floor in front of the nearly dead fire. The room was dark, barely lit by the reddish embers in the grate. The poker was where it had been before. Her hand flew to her throat-and found the clockwork angel there.
A dream. Tessa's heart fell. It had all been a dream. There was no angel to bathe her in its light. There was only this cold room, the encroaching darkness, and the clockwork angel steadily ticking down the minutes to the end of everything in the world.
Will stood atop Cadair Idris, the reins of his horse in his hand.
As he had ridden toward Dolgellau, he had seen the massive wall of Cadair Idris towering above the Mawddach estuary, and the breath had gone out of him in a gasp-he was here. He had climbed this mountain before, as a child, with his father, and those memories stayed with him as he left the Dinas Mawddwy road and pounded toward the mountain on the back of Balios, who seemed still to be fleeing the flames of the village they had left behind them. They had continued through a weedy tarn-the silvery sea could be seen in one direction, and the peak of Snowdon in the other-up to the Nant Cadair valley. The village of Dolgellau below, sparkling with occasional light, made a pretty picture, but Will was not admiring the view. The Night Vision rune he had given himself allowed him to track the footsteps of the clockwork creatures. There were enough of them that the ground was torn where they had walked down the mountain, and he followed with a pounding heart the path of ruination toward the peak of the mountain.
Their tracks led up past a tumble of massive boulders Will remembered were called the moraine. They formed a partial wall that protected Cwm Cau, a small valley atop the mountain in whose heart rested Llyn Cau, a clear glacial lake. The tracks of the clockwork army led from the edge of the lake-
And vanished.
Will stood, looking down at the cold, clear waters. In the daylight, he recalled, this view was magnificent: Llyn Cau pure blue, surrounded by green grass, and the sun touching the razor-sharp edges of Mynydd Pencoed, the cliffs surrounding the lake. He felt a million miles from London.
The reflection of the moon gleamed up at him from the water. He sighed. The water lapped gently at the edge of the lake, but it could not erase the marks of the automatons' tracks. It was clear where they had come from. He reached back and patted Balios's neck.
"Wait for me here," he said. "And if I do not return, take yourself back to the Institute. They will be glad to see you again, old boy."
The horse whickered gently and bit at his sleeve, but Will only drew in his breath and waded into Llyn Cau. The cold liquid lapped up over his boots and hit his trousers, soaking through to freeze his skin. He gasped with the shock of it.
"Wet again," he said glumly, and plunged forward into the icy waters of the lake. They seemed to pull him in, like quicksand-he barely had time to gasp in a breath before the freezing water dragged him down into darkness.
To: Charlotte Branwell
From: Consul Wayland
Mrs. Branwell,
You are relieved of your position as head of the Institute. I could speak of my disappointment with you, or the broken faith that exists between us now. But words, in the face of a betrayal of the magnitude of that which you have offered me, are futile. On my arrival in London tomorrow, I will expect you and your husband to have already departed the Institute and removed your belongings. Failure to comply with this request will be met with the harshest penalties available under the Law.
Josiah Wayland, Consul of the Clave