Chapter 27: Through The Aperture

I'd thought to remain in the dome to write for days, but I became sickened by the cozening comfort it offered. Were I enclosed within a proper room, with grim and lavish decor such as the one I recently left, I would not feel guilty over feeling warmth, but would only see shreds of the warscape to disturb my security. But while I was protected from the cold, biting winds of Tarthas, sheltered by the clearest glass more solid than steel, I looked out on desolation that could not touch me, and I felt like a liar.

Now I sit under the open sky, wrapped in humidity that has come from I know not where. I am hearing sounds like and unlike thunder, cracking sounds, from a great stone tree splintering under a heavy weight, and while it is from very far away, I hear it echoing down from the upward fathoms to rock the very wall on which I stand. Oh Winds, tell me whether I've done right or wrong! Tell me that when I compressed the covenants into one clear diamond, I did indeed find truth! The Fates struck us down, and now the materials have been cooked blacker than black; their impurities ready to be washed away. Have we not suffered enough? The centrifuge has been stilled, and within is a towering tree of death where qliphoth and sefirot are uncloaked and stand decided on either side of the line, and we are ready for the winnowing. Do not delay! Let the division bell be rung.

In Autumn's Hope, there is a chemist who, through wizardry, extracts the nectar of the carnivorous alzarus plant and crafts it into a drug known as primer. As primer, it is sold in lozenge form, but I suspect it is sold by the vat to a much more lucrative client as liquid. In either state, it suppresses those nodes in the mind that warn us when waking and dreaming are about to collide, and many mistake what they see as visions of the future. I know that even with the aid of narcotics, tomorrow exists beyond a kaleidoscope of probability, walled off by a fog so dense a bull could not charge through it. I want to peer through that fog right now, but I've battered my head against its surface enough times to have learned better. If only I could shout backward through the fog behind me, and tell my young self that the power I sought was no glorious thing, but a macabre truth that would turn me into a ghoul.

And yet, perhaps I should be grateful. Had I gained my knowledge in a single, overwhelming revelation, and not in excruciatingly small pieces, would I have seen things through? Would I have abandoned hope for my own happiness so that I could tread the path of the warrior? Would I have forsaken friendship, loyalty, and the rites of the dead in order to outrun the tide? Would I have turned my back on the pleasures of Elvedon, the riches offered by Jadus, or the transient protection of Lord V's favor? I likely would have been corrupted by fear, and, seeking a lasting place in a dying world, given myself over to many false promises and the gnostic lie of Thirty-Third Day.

My squad of nine travelled upward on the opposite side from the van. Very little was actually told to us of our purpose. What I write now I know in retrospect, and some from observation in the moment. We moved very quickly and very quietly, making use of the architecture of Haven's outlying spires and sprawling scaffolds. Our commander, whose name was Makore, seemed to have detailed knowledge of the structures we traversed, going far beyond our carefully laid out path. We had a tyfloch in our ranks, young and cocky, and healthier than most. He wore a leather mask, implying a rotted face, but his wings were clean and he used them often. Makore often sent him ahead to scout upper levels or peer around corners from above. No one said this in more than a whisper, but it seemed the tyfloch boy was being sent ahead as fodder. Any targ snipers lying in wait would reveal themselves to us all if he were shot, giving us the edge. If this boy had any sense, he would have seen this, and flown discreetly. But he brandished his beautiful wings as if he were competing for a mate, and so it was that he eventually took a quarrel to his brain and plummeted like a stone, his red leather mask gleaming in torchlight as he fell.

We responded with a slow, creeping form of violence that I can't in good conscience relate to retribution. Makore took note of where the shot came from, and we approached from the path of greatest cover.

I forget sometimes that for most people, travelling between settlements is not worth the risk, and you who read this may have never seen Haven. Below ground, it for a time earned its namesake. Above ground, Haven was quintessential of how I saw the world from my boyhood home; the warscape. The circle of spires had been half destroyed. Many of the towers were collapsed upon the ground, their pointed caps broken like battlefield skulls. The central spire rose over two hundred feet according to the most sensible people, but it seemed to go on forever when viewed from the ground. Five levels of steel flooring wrapped around the inner ring of the city. Accessible by long and slender ladders and narrow bridges, this was where the targs had made their home.

We had removable ladders of our own to access the first level, and from there we trusted intelligence gathered in part by our own regulars, and partly by hired scouts. Hugging the wall of the central spire like nursing infants, we crept at an agonizingly slow pace to where the shooter was perched. He seemed alone, but the sense that others hid nearby was palpable. Makore sent Slynx, a young lucien with clever feet, after the shooter, while myself and two others climbed to a vantage point overhead to watch for his backup. We had each been armed for close quarters, having a gladius on our hips and compact arbalests slung across our backs. They were simple weapons, but the finest quality I'd yet to wield. I held tightly to a tower of steel girders with my right arm, while aiming my arbalest with my left. I marveled at the weapon's heft and tight construction. Till then I'd only known cheap rentals and the spears given to the militia.

Slynx moved well, keeping close to the floor of the narrow bridge. His mute grey battledress was well matched for the surrounding metal, and he had no exposed skin to show light to the enemy. Still they saw him, and two quarrels blasted through his neck and spine, sparking against the rail of the bridge his dead body rested on. Reflexively, I turned to point my own weapon, but caught sight of Makore's raised hand and held my fire. Eris closed her eyes as I pulled her close, and her kisses were delayed and fitful. My hands were sweating from anxious nerves, and we both shook during our embrace. I had to come back to her. I slowly lowered myself and managed to slip through the webbing of metal braces that made my tower, and watched carefully from the cover it provided. An excruciating moment of absolute silence went by, until at last we heard voices. The shooter's team thought they had killed the only attackers, and were discussing how best to cook lucien and tyfloch. A tarrasquin voice said she would eat hers raw, and then came the soft sound of a backstab, followed by a choked and muffled grunt. Makore killed the rest before the last one had time to shout, and we doused the bodies with a powerful deodorizing spray.

A day and a night passed before we encountered any other guards, and these were dispatched without further losses. On the third day we reached our point of ingress; a small hatch in the wall of the tower on the third level. With a hard face and cold voice, Makore commended us on our stealth and speed, then applied an explosive jelly to the seam of the hatch. The blast was more smoke than sound, and we all moved to catch the door before it fell, setting it quietly on the ground outside. One by one, we crossed the threshold.

Violence in battle is a sudden thing, but often the progression of conflict moves in the precarious manner of a snake's head. We probed thus for days, traversing the dark passages of the targ city with maddening caution. Much of the city appeared as I expected it would. We saw little of it, keeping any source of light dimmed or even dark unless absolutely needed, but when we did dare quick flashes I saw that they had gouged and carved their home as they were beginning to do to Eris's chest. She was always frightened when I touched or kissed her, but especially around the collar bone. The closer my lips and fingers came to those scars, the more fitful her body became, so I would make my way quickly to them at first, attending with healing affection where she had been violated, so that I might more indulgently explore the rest of her.

We were resting under the charred remains of some wooden effigy when my secret sight came to life. I suppose I had been too distracted to summon it before. There are times I forget my gifts, which is perhaps one of the prime reasons I suspect them to be foreign. Never once have I seen a lucien forget that their skin glowed, or a tyfloch forget that they had wings; though many keep them folded and banded, ashamed of the mutations that have left their wings malformed and at times nigh vestigial. So far as I'd come my gifts were hidden, and best left so to others. I took in the damp, dripping halls with my ghostlight vision, observing the strange markings cut and painted onto ceiling, floor and wall. I'd hoped to imprint them on my memory, in case we ever became lost, or I found myself detached from my unit.

One mark stood out to me more than the others, as it bore a strong resemblance to the beginning of the brand cut into my love. Two sensations juxtaposed rose within me then, that of curiosity, wondering what each symbol meant, and that of anger, and I felt glad to be on this mission. The targs were worse than animals, for animals are meant to behave as they do; it is far more disturbing to see an animal act sentient than it is to see one act savage. These beasts were perversions, murderers, rapers, thieves of dignity rather than possessions. If they were to be ended for good, then I was glad to do my part, for my dear Eris's sake, if for nothing else. Then I saw the angels.

Our target was high up, but not at the pinnacle of the central spire. For once, legends were true, and the topmost height of the central spire was indeed the place where ancient furies were summoned to defend Haven. Even the targs could not live there, despite their roach-like ways. We made for the chamber just beneath, where whatever they had for a leader dwelt. Makore did not tell us this, but I surmised it as we kept moving upward through the fuselage of the tower. There was a butchered hole in the wall near our mark. Makore told us the afterthought of a door led to an apartment attached to the outer side of the tower, and it struck me that we were higher than I could ever see looking upward, due to the mists that clung to the towers of upper Haven at their hips.

"If they are not in their palace chamber beneath their summoning rod, then they will be in that apartment."

"Who will be there, lieutenant?" asked a conscript half my height.

"The enemy," was all Makore said. He set two of us to guard the makeshift door, keeping their torches off, while the four of us worked our way further upward. It was not long before we heard the sounds of combat echoing in the hallway. We stopped several times to avoid groups of targs from spotting us as they ran to join the fray. We moved hurriedly upward, using ladders, climbing cables in broken down elevator shafts, or simply piling broken furniture to make a platform. In time we were as far as we could go from the interior. Makore planted a blasting pouch on a bulkhead and we were outside, making the rest of our way up via the network of stairs that wrapped around the tower. Hundreds of these stairs linked the many towers together, climbing their sides like serpents and steel ivy, and spreading between them in the manner of spiderwebs. Makore knew a direct route that led to a large platform where two targs manned a mortar castle. Makore handed me a blasting satchel and sent me to attach it to the base of the turret. I crept silently as I could, which is very quiet, up a ladder built into the outer wall of the tower, crawled on my belly across the edge of the platform, placed the charge, then turned to head back down when I heard a shout. I whirled, and one of the targs was looking out the window of the turret. He ducked back inside and I heard what sounded like a lever pulling, then the screaming of steel as the ladder I climbed was retracted. Terrified, I ran to the only cover I could find, the doorway into the targ ruler's palace, which was cracked only wide enough for one of the guards to peek through. I plunged my gladius into his torso and threw him aside, then slammed the door shut behind me.

The blast was thunderous, followed by the slow groan of the turret sagging over the edge. A few seconds later I heard it crashing into stairways and platforms as it fell. I cracked the door open as the guard had, and already there were a dozen men and women in battle dress scurrying about the platform, looking about like rats who smell food. A woman saw the dead guard, then saw me, then howled, and they all came running toward me. I drew my arbalest and sent a flurry of bolts into them, wounding at least two, and killing the woman who ratted me out, then again closed the door and turned into a cracking of light and power that sent me reeling.

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