It is over.
Without a driver, the tank rumbles away into the mist, leaving only me and the boy with the watch. I stand for a moment in the cool drizzle, listening to war happening above the clouds. For the first time in my memory, I serve no one. Huangdi’s relic is a lump of poison in my pocket, a counterfeit prize that has lost me everything. My sister was my reason for living. And so I shall have to rebuild myself into someone who can live without her.
My heart is broken. And so is my Word.
I pull the anima from my pocket and hold it. Almost of its own accord, my hand begins to dip. The artifact slides across my fingers in the same way Hypatia’s body slid down the deck of a sinking ship. It rolls, slipping over the side, tumbling away.
The anima hits the ground and it does not bounce.
Nearby, the Russian boy is watching, eyes wide and unblinking. I bow my head and stand over the discarded anima for one more moment. I feel nothing.
From now on, I have no master to serve. No family to protect. My Word has become a tangle of barbed wire lodged in the back of my throat. Every action I take from here on will be for myself—the justice I choose to make.
I am done fighting other people’s wars.
55
CHINA, PRESENT
Wedged halfway up the side of Huangdi’s black throne, I grip the fanged mouth of a dragon and try to keep my breathing steady. Horrible things are happening across the necropolis, flashes of violence filtered through a near-constant strobe of gunfire and a reddish haze of dust thrown off by thousands of tons of shattered pottery.
Two armies are battling, one from the present and the other from the past.
Automaton soldiers are wriggling free of their terra-cotta skins, born with marks stamped in their foreheads and carrying antique weapons made of bronze, wood, and bone. The team of human mercenaries that followed Leizu inside are struggling in the darkness, some barking out commands, others firing weapons randomly at the obsidian monsters, chips of rock spraying from the ceiling and ricocheted bullets pinging off stone pillars.
The sun disk is still somewhere above me, embedded in sculpted rock.
Below, a man in Kevlar armor is thrown like a rag doll, bouncing off the base of the throne and landing on his back. The man’s shoulder is twisted at a bad angle, the impact of something big having caved it in. Eyes rolling in pain, he spots me staring down at him. Frantically, the commando claws at the snub-nosed machine gun strapped over his chest, trying to aim the barrel at me.
I squeeze myself against the dark, sculpted folds of rock. Body tensed, I’m trying to make myself small, waiting to feel the cold trauma of bullets ripping into my back.
Nothing happens.
In the swirling dust below, I see the muscular figure of Peter. He has impaled the wounded soldier with a long spear. Now he’s dragging the man screaming back into the fray, protecting me during my ascent.
Coughing in the haze of clay dust, I turn away from the grisly sight.
Jamming one foot into a dragon’s mouth, I push myself up. Marveling at the complexity of this sculpture, I focus on my own hands and feet, always climbing. Finally, I feel something strange—my scalp prickling from a faint static electricity.
Almost there.
Huangdi’s voice pulsates from somewhere nearby, indistinct and growling. The top of the throne in sight, I haul myself up and peek over. The emperor has descended to the cleared-off space at the foot of the dais, ringed by tall pillars. Bullets are spraying at him from the darkness, most absorbed by row after row of the soldier machines. Surrounded by black-armored warriors, Huangdi bellows a challenge.
Across from him, calm in the eye of the storm, Leizu circles.
The old man raises his scepter, ignoring the chips of his body that spray off in flakes as bullets spit through the ranks of his armored defenders. He clenches his fist and with an electrical snap, the scepter sprouts a long base, becoming a staff.
“To me!” he shouts.
As Huangdi speaks, a slurring moan resonates across the cavern—the clay soldiers are also speaking, mindlessly repeating his words with hard, broken lips.
Leizu waits for Huangdi, the relics built into her armor glinting like beetle shells. Between them, the air shimmers with motes of powder from bullet-pulverized ceramics. Broken pieces of terra-cotta men are heaped around them, and in the darkness of the cavern a dwindling number of mercenary soldiers continue fighting ranks of ancient warriors.
An elbow hooked over the throne, I run my other hand blindly across the back of the carved surface, desperately searching for the black disk I saw earlier.
The emperor spins his iron staff in slow circles. As he does, its sculpted contours begin to glow gold-white. Twirling, it draws a golden circle. His robe has disintegrated completely, falling from his shoulders to reveal a surprisingly agile ceramic body painted in gold and silver.
“The Yellow God is risen,” he says, voice mimicked a hundred times over. “Submit to me, Leizu.”
In a blur, the light and dark fall into each other.
I feel a slight tremor of electricity tickle my fingertips—the static pattern I felt earlier. My fingers slide across a smooth metal circle embedded in the carved rock.
The sun disk.
“Rend her,” growls the emperor, and the voices of a multitude rumble through the cave like far-off thunder. “Take her to pieces.”
I pry the plate out of the back of the throne. It comes away slowly, only set in a decorative fitting. Deceptively heavy, the artifact is still warm as I slide it into my backpack.
One foothold at a time, I lower myself down the throne.
Nearing the bottom, I see a pile of corpses sprawled over the floor. The figures are mostly made of black and broken machinery, but I also spot a few of Leizu’s helmeted mercenaries. Standing over the mound of carnage is Peter, hands up to catch me.
“June,” he calls. “I am here.”
I let go and fall into his arms.
Sporadic gunfire chatters as the last of Leizu’s mercenaries fight for their lives in the darkness. On the other side of the throne, I can hear Huangdi and Leizu battling. I grab Peter by the arm and drag him in the other direction, toward the breach in the far wall.
“Wait,” he says, looking back.
Around us, the ranks of clay warriors are shoving past without stopping, closing in around the throne. Leizu is pacing, looking for a way out as the crush of hundreds of soldiers presses in. Shafts of light pour from Huangdi’s staff, turning lazy circles, the beams cutting through dancing motes of shattered pottery.
Leizu spins and slices through a row of clay defenders. Her mercenary soldiers are gone now, motionless humps, bodies clothed in advanced fabrics and still clutching high-tech weaponry. Another row of warriors replaces the last, pushing Leizu closer to Huangdi. He lifts the staff over his head like a baseball bat, brings it down.
The impact shatters her dark armor.
Leizu falls to a knee as scales of armor spray into the air, tumbling and rolling through thick dust. For an instant, each individual relic bursts into light, symbols streaking through darkness. The light fades as the artifacts soar deeper into the cavern, rolling through clay powder, landing at our feet.
Peter drops to his knees, pawing through the mess.
“No!” I shout, grabbing his shoulder. “We’ve got to go!”
On all fours, he keeps rooting through the slivers of warm metal, holding up relics to inspect them and then tossing them down. Surging around Leizu’s fallen body, the terra-cotta warriors are starting to turn their attention back to the cavern. Eternally smiling obsidian faces flash in the light from Huangdi’s staff.
“We have to go now,” I repeat, trying to pull Peter away from the mess of scattered relics.
Lunging forward, he gathers up a few random pieces and jams them into his webbed pockets, allowing me to pull him up.
“Right behind you,” he says. “Go.”
The sun disk is a heavy l
ump in my pack as I hunch over and bolt away into the cavern. Yanking my shirt over my nose to block the dust, I sprint toward the dim light of the breach made by Leizu’s soldiers. I don’t slow until the throne is safely behind me.
“Peter—” I start, turning, but he’s gone, disappeared into the haze.
A calm has settled over the cavern. The fighting has stopped, and the necropolis has fallen back into silence. A sputtering golden light flares from before the throne, striping the necropolis with the long shadows of obsidian warriors. The surviving soldiers are once again oriented toward a single point—honoring their leader.
“Peter,” I call, quietly, mouth still hidden in my shirt. I can’t see anything nearby in this fog of dust—all of it washed out by a golden nebula of light near the throne. Shining in his radiance, Leizu is kneeling before the Yellow Emperor.
“Peter, where are you?”
The broken body of an obsidian warrior lies at my feet, its arms and legs pulverized to black dust. Staring sightlessly, its lips begin to move. The soldier is mouthing the words of its emperor as he speaks to Leizu.
“Now,” he says, hard lips biting. “We are the Oneness—”
Tish, tish, tish.
Something is snapping. I cover my ears as the explosive echoes wash over me. Peculiar flurries of dust are pluming from one of the tall stone pillars that ring the throne. Wobbling in the middle, the slender column is breaking, the cylinders of stacked stone already raining down like dark meteorites.
And now I see him—Peter, head down, arms out as he shoves.
The forms of Huangdi and Leizu are still enveloped in a golden haze, dusty shafts of light that illuminate shadows of falling stone. The two of them are looking at each other, hands clasped together as the pillar collapses over them. I fall to my knees as a wave of rubble and shattered stone snuffs out the golden light, sending a black wave of dust cascading toward me like water from a broken dam.
The stars disappear, leaving the necropolis in total darkness.
I know the cave-in is finally over when I can hear my own coughing. Staggering through the cloud of rock dust, I trip and fall to my knees. On all fours, I do my best to breathe through my filthy shirt.
A rustling, slithering sound is rising.
With a shaking hand, I feel for the headlamp strapped to my forehead. Clicking the light on, the powdery cavern floor before my face illuminates. Lifting my gaze, the white beam pushes into swirling gray dust motes. I stifle a moan when I notice the black shapes, the remains of shattered soldiers, crawling toward me on broken limbs, eternally stoic faces chipped and crumbling.
I scramble backward, stopping as my back presses into a familiar bulk. Turning, I see a gloved hand, gray with dust, reaching to take mine.
“Come, June,” says Peter. “It is over.”
EPILOGUE
LONDON, PRESENT
My hand keeps going back to the spot on my chest where something is missing. I never realized it, but over the years, the relic became a part of me. It was a secret I had from the whole world, and a bond to someone I loved very much. Now that it’s gone, I’m not sure what’s going to fill the empty space.
This ridiculous diamond necklace of Peter’s isn’t going to cut it.
I step out of a black car, shoulder blades straining against the fabric of a complicated silver dress. A tailor met me at the penthouse where I’m staying in London, tut-tutting at the bruises and scrapes all over my body. In minutes, he made this dress fit like a second skin. I left the hotel wondering if the same tailor ever used his talent to stitch together other kinds of skins, ones made of plastic and carbon fiber.
I can’t help looking at the world in the way of an avtomat now, as a place where diamonds and dresses are not as important as relics and armor. It’s a point of view that suits me just fine.
Crossing a winding cobblestoned street, I approach a nondescript wooden door embedded in the wall of a stone building. I was told this was supposed to be a restaurant, but I don’t see any hint of it—just a small plaque that reads Pontack’s.
I resist the urge to pull out my cedalion and take another look.
A large purse swings on my shoulder as I push the narrow door open and step into a dim foyer. The lights are low in here, candles and kerosene, the hissing lanterns hanging from iron hooks below chandeliers heaped with melting candles.
An attendant nods to me, silently leading the way past a series of alcoves, each shielded by wooden latticework, holding tables occupied by hidden diners speaking in low, indistinct voices. We move past them and through an arched doorway set in the stone facade of another, even older building.
I blink at the small room, even as the attendant closes the door behind me.
The wood paneling, furniture, friezes on the walls—all of it is centuries old. A golden chandelier burns handmade candles, each holder cupped in a partial mirror. The ceiling is painted classically, with images of angels and cherubs and lambs. A round dinner table sits under the chandelier.
I feel as if I have time traveled, or stepped into a museum.
In the corner, a young man puts his hand to a primitive harp. His cheek is pressed against the shoulder of the instrument, fingers fluttering over the strings. Dulcet tones settle over the room like a gentle snowfall.
“Hello again, Elena,” I say. “Nice place.”
Sitting at the table behind an elaborate tea setting, the girl sees my stunned face and smiles. She picks up a teapot and begins to pour me a cup.
“I sometimes have a hard time letting go of the past,” Elena says, shrugging. “Please, sit.”
Reminding myself to breathe, I lower myself onto a seat and wince as it creaks. The chairs in this room are older than my country. I can’t even begin to estimate the cost of all the artwork and rugs and artifacts that line the walls. Then again, the young lady sitting across from me is worth more than all of it combined.
And, of course, her brother.
“Peter,” I say. “You look better than the last time I saw you.”
Since our return to London from China, the avtomat has had his wounds professionally repaired. His face is smooth, eyes bright. There isn’t a trace of red clay dust on him. Wearing new clothes and a half smile, you’d never know that he was capable of flipping a car upside down with his bare hands.
“Elena was kind enough to allow me to use her people,” he says.
“Might as well,” says the girl, sarcastic. “It’s the end of the world, after all.”
I lean my elbows on the table.
“About that…” I begin.
Across the circular table, two avtomat stare back at me. One is a young girl, beautiful and relentlessly skeptical. The other is a man with broad shoulders, a bit dour looking under his mustache. A faint scar is still just visible, high on his cheek. These two creatures resemble each other, like siblings, although any similarity is a result of their own decisions, conscious or otherwise.
The three of us form a triangle at the table. I find my voice sticks to the back of my throat as I realize that it’s really true—I’m a part of this hidden world.
And now, I’ve got a chance to save it.
“We found something in the necropolis,” I continue, clearing my throat.
Reaching into my purse, I pull out the sun disk. Elena regards it cautiously, running her eyes across the circular outline of the device.
“The breath of life,” she says, quietly.
“It’s not a legend, after all. This device recharged Huangdi’s relic and preserved his memory. And I think I can figure out how to make it work again.”
Elena leans back in her chair, thinking.
“We can do wonders with this, June…not only save ourselves but bring back the lost,” she says, and when she smiles there is sadness in the curl of her lip. I am reminded of a certain glass coffin.
I offer a consoling smile, my eyes sliding to the side.
“You are my sister,” says Peter, his tone grave. “And I wan
t you to be safe, but also…happy. I made mistakes, before. I have learned from them.”
As usual, Peter is not smiling. Hands flat on the table, he is concentrating on delivering the rest of his message. I can almost see the clockwork turning in his mind. He glowers, hesitating to speak.
Elena leans over and puts her small hand over his.
“Thank you, Brother,” she says.
“I am not finished,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket. Elena watches his hand, perplexed as he withdraws a crescent-shaped piece of metal.
Elena’s eyes fill with tears as she recognizes the symbol.
“Virtue,” she whispers. “You found her.”
Peter nods, placing Hypatia’s anima on the table between ceramic teacups and saucers and strange clay animals. Elena hesitantly picks it up, holding it in both hands. She turns it over and over, rubbing red clay dust off with her thumbs.
She smiles, and tears spill over her cheeks.
I didn’t know avtomat could do that.
Elena pulls the relic against her chest and slides an arm around Peter’s neck. His eyes close as she does it. Sudden tears rush to my eyes as I watch the look on Peter’s face as he hugs his sister for the first time in two hundred years.
“Hypatia is only the first,” I say, reaching again into my purse.
One by one, I set more relics on the table. Batuo. Talus. And then others, the ones collected at random from a dust-covered cavern floor. Each bears a unique symbol, the Word its owner carried in life. Each is a mystery as great as the one I used to wear around my neck.
There are strange things in the world, June. Things older than we know.
I lay a final piece on the table, a chunk of dusty rock—utterly unremarkable save for a spray of metal dots that stubble its surface. The artifact I recovered from a hidden alcove in Huangdi’s throne captured my curiosity back at the hotel. It took only a moment to flake away the loose sediment with a rock pick and brush. Inside the lump of solid stone, I found something familiar—a dark crescent of metal.
The relic has been fossilized.
I can’t even begin to imagine who it belongs to, or why it was made—much less when—but I plan on finding out. All I do know is the age of a thing is right there in the feel of it. No matter what I’ve seen, there are more secrets locked in the fingerprints of cracked porcelain and the bloom of rust on metal. And when I hold this relic in my hands and let my eyelids meet, mind-reeling eons of time seem to stretch out before me like a star-filled sky.