The Immortal of Degoskirke Read online

“I’m not taking the Cogito. I’m never putting that helmet on either. Just unfreeze time and let them kill me.”

  Caspian sighed. “A coward—”

  Andy looked away.

  “No, too far. A coward wouldn’t have made it so far, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? You’ve struggled through far too much, in such a short time. It’s jaded you. Now you reject my help, after everything.”

  Andy furrowed his brow. “You’ve never helped me! You’re a killer!”

  “I’ve been with you from the beginning. Don’t you remember?”

  Andy felt a burst of memory overwhelm him. He saw Dean for the first time and then he was at the gallery. He saw a silver glow.

  Flex the muscles around your eyes, they will focus around the halo.

  Devoid of even annoyance, Andy obeyed the command. The glow focused as he tensed his eyes. The statue came into focus.

  “I’ve been with you since this moment.”

  Andy remembered rushing around the corner with Dean and grazing the statue. He remembered feeling something, even then.

  “I’ve been slowly awakening with you.”

  “The whole time! You’ve been in my head since then?” Andy yelled.

  Caspian nodded, and Andy’s sight shifted back to the Cogito.

  “When Thea saw you, she suspected. She wasn’t certain, but she sensed it—she sensed me. She was hoping to make the transition easier by taking you into the Juncture. She expected to find one of my possessions there. She didn’t know what still lingered in the dark. Though her plan to draw me to the surface did succeed, I wasn’t present enough to reach through. Poor girl, she’s probably still in there, tearing her hair out.”

  “Pythia is sick. What she does to her students is wrong.”

  Caspian laughed. “She’s a few thousand years old, Lysander. Come back and talk about right and wrong after just a century. I’m sure you’ll find her methods a far cry from what those students would have suffered, if left on the surface. Though naming her school, Caspia, was in poor taste.”

  Andy shook his head. “I’m not going to change my mind. Not about Pythia and not about you.”

  Caspian inclined his brow. “Thrag recognized me in you, and even the traitorous ryle saw something. They know and understand what you do not, Lysander. You speak with the Voice of the Dead God. Do you know what that means?” Caspian paused, but Andy was silent. “Do you believe that you killed that mantis? Did you winch that crossbow on the beach? Did you grasp the Argument, when you thought it aflame? Could you have survived a fight with that bloated failure, Xyth, in his disgusting city? Could you have stood to run away from your family on a bare hunch? Did you have the strength to subdue the cyclostone, Cygnus? Did any of these feats cause you a moment’s doubt?”

  Andy was silent for a long while. “Yes, they did.”

  “And why?”

  “Because each was beyond me.”

  Caspian crossed his arms. “Without me, they were. I guided you through those trials, to this end alone. You chased after Lysette—I knew where she would be taken. You moved towards her, but why? Does your heart stir for her? Is your child’s honor so pronounced? What moved your two feet so far? Do you think the ryle—those coward fools—would have unchained you last night, if it were not on my word?”

  “No.”

  “Now, look here. There are men with wheel-locks. You said a moment ago that you stood no chance against them. Indeed, their bullets are coated with a mixture that will not allow a wound they cause to be healed. Even if you knew how to call up a shield, or better yet, coat your body in armor, those bullets could pass right through. This is how they keep the empowered ryle out of the city, but it is also how they keep any Seers from picking up a piece of Argument.”

  Andy felt a question form. “It is known that every piece of Argument is guarded?”

  “They guard the critical pieces, at least those they know of, and they have for ages. These men stand guard here on the order of the Exegesuits. The robust temple of atheism that, though despicable, keeps the city from crumbling further into degradation.”

  “Ziesqe must have known the Cogito would be guarded. He sent me up here to take it and cause a distraction—” Andy trailed off into suspicious thought.

  “There’s a lad. Use that brain.”

  “He knows that if they shoot me, I can’t be healed?”

  “Possibly.”

  “He planned that I would die here.”

  Caspian shook his head. “I would like to let you believe that.”

  “What? That isn’t true?”

  “He expects violence far grander.” Caspian gestured widely at the Cogito. “Reach out and claim it. You will know everything I know. You are afraid, and remember what it was like with the Casque, but, with time, you will learn to blend your thoughts and experiences with my own. Your understanding of the surface will be invaluable in our next campaign.”

  “Our campaign?”

  Caspian smiled.

  “What’s your goal?”

  Caspian laughed. “The same goal I’ve had since I inherited the Voice. Exterminate the ryle, and peel their parasite God from the spine of reality. Just touch your old weapon.”

  Andy looked over to the Cogito. “So much Argument. You could do almost anything with it, but wouldn’t the city suffer if we took it?”

  “It would. Panobscura Talionis would crumble into ruin, and this purifying source of water would dry up. In time, Degoskirke would finish sinking back into the sea.”

  “So, all these people, even the ones who worship you, who expect your return, they would all die.”

  “Again, you lack the breadth of perspective. Join with me, touch the Argument, and I will show you why it must be this way.”

  Andy reached out. The impulse to take the Argument was immense, but the faces and voices of the people below filled his thoughts. The lively trade and passionate debate. He remembered Hyadoth. He felt the desire to strike fear, to make Ziesqe pay, but knew it was wrong.

  “I will not be a wild killer. Unfreeze time and let them finish me.”

  “Lysander, the people of this city live in humiliation. Your kin in the purple waste live in worse. Your families on the surface are slaves! The millions with Seer blood scattered across the Netherscape all live in constant fear. Change is cataclysm! It is the greatest possible end for these sad remnants. They will look up and see that your ascension is just! They will see the cavern burn with silver light! The ryle and their servants for miles in every direction will molder and crumble at the sight! We will travel to the surface and awaken the billions there! The sky will fall and our old enemy will stir! He will remember what it means to feel fear!”

  Andy stepped closer. He felt the warm glow coming from the Cogito. He wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything. He wanted to kneel before Caspian, before his thousands of years, before the infinite depth of his knowledge, and before the certainty in his fearsome eyes. Andy bit down on his cheeks and tasted blood.

  “No more half measures! No more preservation! I have been soft, but today we grasp Cogito!”

  Andy felt his stomach clench as a terrible question came to his lips: “How many times has this happened?” he asked.

  “This will be the last.”

  Andy lowered his hand and shook his head. He felt a tear streak down his face at the sickening revelation. “Your words are moving,” Andy paused, tears falling, “but it will be a repeat of Hyadoth. You love glory and slaughter. You do not deserve to be worshiped.”

  A loud crack, almost like laughter, rang out. Andy spun around and saw a dark purple shadow flash over the stone. Caspian growled and vanished in silver light.

  The ground shook and the air burst with ringing explosions. In an instant, the water was flowing again. A bullet struck rock, and the guards stumbled in the violent shaking.

  “What’s happened?” “He’s vanished!” they yelled.

  Andy saw that the stairs were unguarded. He rushed
towards them and climbed, not looking back. The bursting concussions rang out, but it sounded to Andy as if they were coming from outside the pillar, like thunder or lightning outside a building. On the last stair, Andy heard one of the gun mechanisms firing.

  The ground shook, and the bullet missed its mark, ringing against an iron bar.

  “After him!” a guard yelled.

  “To hell with that! There’s a damned skybreak!” the other’s voice was almost drowned out by the violent banging.

  Andy looked around, trying to spot a way to escape. He saw an outer rail that opened onto the wide Netherscape. He rushed to the rail and looked out onto the massive city, so far below. The colorful cavern ceiling was barely a dozen feet further up, though the colors there were now flashing between purple and silver.

  A burst made his eyes flex in pain. Flashing silver and purple lights shot into and out of existence. They cracked against each other with such force that the whole Guilt shook.

  He heard people down below screaming. “Skybreak!”

  The two lights exploded at each other and instead of bursting apart, they held in place. The air around them flashed with moving figures and the burnt-out silhouettes of images. Andy tasted something acidic in the air, and then heard rasping cracks. He saw fields of dark purple and silver grow out over the surface of the Guilt. The silver and purple drew closer. Finally, they grew over the rail. Andy stood back and saw that the fields comprised small, rapidly growing crystals.

  It’s like frost, but it moves like it’s on fire.

  The purple frost was pushed away from Andy, and the silver caught him. It grew up his arms and legs. He tried to run, but felt the Argument shaking. He opened his palm and saw the orb. It flashed, and burning fields of crystals rushed into it.

  Andy stood in amazement, as the tiny orb grew and grew. The crashing and banging outside finally faded away. Moments later, his orb was the size of a hefty snowball.

  Andy grasped it and the blade appeared. It was huge and almost too bright to look at.

  “All clear!” A guard yelled from in the pit.

  Andy saw a gate off to his right. He ran towards it and sliced a way through. On the other side he was met by crowds of people trying to collect the fields of crystals that had grown all over the walls and floor. They were using anything they could to brush the thin layer of crystals into jars or bags. Now and then someone would cry out as their bare skin came too close to the crystals.

  Andy was careful as he pushed through the masses of people. Only a few looked up to be startled by him and the blade.

  Andy smiled like an idiot and released his grip. He looked for the path down the tower, but only found a ragged stairwell close to the center of the Guilt. He felt anonymous as everyone focused on collecting the crystals. The guards were also equally distracted by scuffles in the crowds.

  Andy took the stairs down and pushed against crowds racing to the higher floors to take advantage of the skybreak. He recalled travelling up in the cylinder lift and knew getting back down would take some time. He was grateful for the tumult.

  When he felt like his knees might give out, Andy stopped on a random floor. He looked into the central plaza and considered the local shops and houses. Inside the windows of one shop he spotted a shape moving up from the floor through the ceiling.

  Was that an elevator?

  Andy saw a sign above the door, “Amrel’s Guilt Lift.”

  Andy stepped inside and saw a brutox standing lazily by the elevator door. He pointed at a box. Unsure, Andy stepped aside as another couple came in. Andy watched them deposit two copper pieces; the brutox was also paying attention.

  “Down please,” the man said.

  Andy fished out his bag and found a copper bit. He showed it to the brutox before tossing it in the box.

  “Down,” Andy said.

  The brutox pulled a heavy lever. They waited silently, until a car came to rest in one of the banks. A goblin opened the door for them.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “The base,” the woman said.

  “Me too,” Andy replied to the goblin’s glance.

  Once the elevator rumbled into motion, Andy was surprised to hear the other passengers talking.

  “That was the worst skybreak I’ve seen in years,” the man said.

  “And they’ll be fighting for hours up there. We were lucky to get in and out so quickly,” she replied.

  “Did you find any etherium, young man?” the woman asked Andy.

  Andy shrugged. “Maybe a little,” he said, honestly.

  “Oh, you need to be more careful,” the woman said, suddenly looking about in her purse for something.

  Andy spotted a cloth full of purple crystal bits, though she produced a small, dark carrot.

  “No thanks,” Andy said. “I’m trying something new.”

  They both stepped away from him and stared.

  “They’ll kill you. You can’t leave the Guilt like that. Even the base of the pillar is unsafe.”

  Andy nodded and accepted the carrot, though he stared at it for a long while, not sure what to do. He didn’t know where to go, though he did recall Ziesqe telling him to keep an eye out for hidden writing. Ziesqe had betrayed him, but it seemed like his only option. Andy sighed and pocketed the carrot. The woman noticed this.

  “Marcus, I heard that someone was waving around an Argument. It happened close to the Cogito, up near the top.” She spoke to Marcus, but her eyes remained locked on Andy.

  Andy sighed. “What are you going to do with those crystals?” He asked, hoping to change the subject, but they only redoubled their glares. If they could have backed away any further, they would have.

  Andy stood in silence.

  I escaped Caspian, but that’s not what was supposed to happen. Ziesqe knew what was up there. He wanted me to take the Cogito. He knew that Caspian would steal my body. He planned on it. But why would he want to release Caspian? Ziesqe wants Degoskirke safe, so he can rule. He must believe that Caspian wouldn’t destroy the city. Maybe he doesn’t realize that the Cogito keeps it safe—or maybe he does. Maybe he wants a catastrophe like the pure water drying up so he can step in and save the day. He also wanted me to run around and wave the Argument, to scare people into believing him.

  Andy looked over at the couple, who tried to blend into the elevator wall.

  But what do I do now? Ziesqe doesn’t expect me to come back.

  Finally, the elevator stopped. The goblin opened the door and the couple ran off as soon as they could.

  Andy exited the lift and noted the plazas were much wider, further down the pillar.

  He saw a welcoming tavern, but turned away, back to the gated entrance to the Guilt. Humans and ychorites were rushing. There were murmurs about the skybreak and several people asked Andy if he had any etherium to sell. Andy shook his head and pushed through the crowd. The guards were too busy to cast more than a glance his way.

  Andy came to a fork in the road and turned left on a whim.

  I haven’t heard Caspian’s voice in my head for a while. I don’t feel his presence like I did up there. Maybe the skybreak distracted him.

  Andy walked randomly, favoring downhill turns over others. The more he thought, the worse he felt.

  The renewed chorus of debate he heard passing through the plazas gradually caught his attention. He stopped to watch a man, wearing something akin to a military dress uniform, paired with shining black armor, argue with a Braid.

  “This monarchist forgets the thousands of years where humanity flagged under the failed notion that any one man or woman was possessed of the innate right of rulership. How could any reasonable person, bearing even the simplest historical education, posit such a repeatedly failed system as the basis for our government?”

  Andy breathed a sigh of relief as the argument washed over him. People in the audience cheered and booed. Andy saw other braids and uniformed participants bellowing complaint and cheer from the audience. One
of the uniformed men noticed Andy and came to stand by him.

  “You are the bravest man I have ever seen, and yet, you are just a boy,” the armored man said, in an almost scientific manner.

  “Why is that?”

  “Those clothes—if the guards knew what they were, it would be a death sentence. Don’t let an Exegesuit priest see you,” the man concluded in a tone implying Andy already knew this. The man gave him an affirmative nod and clapped him on the shoulder before turning back to the debate.

  I don’t know why, but I like it here.

  The black uniformed man stepped forward on the stage and almost scowled at the audience before speaking, “This simple democrat has taken the first step on the road to the Overman. He has been blinded by the success that this step has afforded and would shut your eyes and ears to the nature of the next step. The monarchs and emperors of the past were much as any one of us today, occasionally great, mostly mediocre, and often disastrous. Very rarely was there an enlightened ruler: A Pericles, Aurelius, or an Augustus, whose overflowing virtue would last longer than their bodies. With such example, how can we not see that, much like the Greek school argues, there is an ideal ruler. We know that such a thing is possible, but where is the endeavor to find this near perfect ruler? They are rare, certainly, and the past systems that sought to discover them were flawed. Democracy is indeed an improvement on those systems, it can keep out the very worst, but it also keeps out the brilliant, the catalysts for change, and those who, by turn of fate, could be the very best. We are inured to our mediocrity! An ideal ruler, and more importantly, the system to attain that ruler, should be the basis for our great experiment.”

  “Experiment? You would hazard all with tyranny from within, while we have spent centuries enduring that from without. You hunt for impossible ideals and expect too much virtue from mere flesh! You would tinker with the delicate framework that keeps this city great!”

  “Great? Walk a thousand yards Pacward and see the sunken wreck of the first Odeon, or the swimming pool that has overflown the Second Globe. Hallmarks of our city’s birth and height, sunken, like the supposed and decayed, greatness of our city! Yes, indeed the Overman is ideal! And yes, we are mortal, but do we not strive for the ideal in all things? Is not democracy an ideal balance of bearable unhappiness for all? Can we not step beyond? Inside, we are demoralized, afraid on all sides, yet, even within you, o braid of the past, lies the seed of fearlessness. The urge to cast away the trappings of a tradition that has run its course, and to seek that new philosophy!”