Agents of Artifice

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Commander Irivan strode purposefully down the metal corridors. Following several steps behind came a pair of Consortium soldiers, or so it would appear to any passerby. Trying desperately to behave as their illusory guises suggested they should, Jace and Liliana struggled to neither gawk at the iron-and-steel perdition through which they passed, nor to wince at the perpetual thumps and whistles and hums that echoed through those passageways.

Walls and ceilings of gleaming metal were lit by recessed globes that glowed without emitting the slightest trace of heat. Some floors boasted tiny patterns in the steel, providing some amount of traction, while others boasted thin layers of carpeting, and still others were nothing but grates that allowed a distorted view of the levels below. Though pristine in appearance, the halls smelled cloyingly of smoke and burning oils.

Doors that were themselves mere sheets of metal either slid aside or irised open as they moved through, or as other guards and workers passed them by, complete with a faint hissing somewhere inside the walls. Heavy windows allowed occasional glances into chambers full of animated metallic limbs, of precarious platforms that rose and fell of their own accord, of glowing spheres that pulsed in patterns Jace could not begin to comprehend. That there was some method behind the mechanized madness he did not doubt, but he couldn't hope to guess what it might be.

Only slowly did it dawn on Jace and Liliana both that, despite their fear and consternation, they were actually feeling better than they had outside. At first Jace attributed it to being out of the desert heat, but no, it was definitely something more. It almost felt as if…

That was it, then. Mana flowed through the walls, the floors, the essence of the Consortium sanctum. And not just any sort of energy but all sorts, from the soothing auras of the ocean to the burning soul of the mountains to the deathly magics of the swamplands. Something in the building, some ingrained magic or alchemical-mechanical process, transformed the ambient mana of the world into any form imaginable. It was subtle, it was difficult to access-as though the walls themselves sought to keep the power contained within-but it was there. Jace almost slumped in relief as he devoted a portion of his attentions to tapping into that source, as he felt his strength slowly but surely rise once more. He could only imagine Liliana felt much the same.

And then they passed a great chamber just as the pistons inside began to pump. Any relief Jace had been feeling evaporated into so much mist, and he couldn't suppress a gasp of unmitigated revulsion.

He'd known there must be not only mechanical ingenuity but mana driving these machines, but he hadn't realized what sort. As they passed, he felt the ambient energies in the air turn dark and cold. Just barely, beneath the clatter and the hiss, the rumbling and the rattling, Jace thought he heard faint screams of living essences bound within the machine, providing the pseudo-sentience it needed to follow its master's commands.

Never had he hated Tezzeret more than he did in that moment; never did he understand more clearly the nature of the devil to whom he'd nearly sold his soul.

A low hiss from Liliana snapped his thoughts back to the present. Irivan had stopped in his tracks while Jace's mind drifted, and it took him a moment to center himself and re-establish control, to set the elf marching ahead once more. And just in time, for as they passed by the next door in the corridor, it slid open and Baltrice herself stepped out into the hall.

All three guards stepped to the side, standing against the wall that she might go by unhindered. She did so, with scarcely a nod of acknowledgment. Only once she had passed did she briefly turn back to peer directly at Jace; no recognition shown in her expression, but her eyes narrowed ever so minutely, as though she were bothered by something she couldn't entirely pin down. And then the thought had passed, as had her gaze, and she was gone around the next bend in the hall.

Jace exhaled loudly, and the group moved on.

And so they progressed, protected by Jace's illusions and ignored by workers and guards alike, through the lower levels of the Consortium's mechanical heart. Guided by the memories and knowledge of the sleepwalker before them, Jace and Liliana inched ever nearer their ultimate goal, and not a soul was aware of their presence.

Jace knew better than to note, or even to think, that it was going too smoothly; he knew all too well it wouldn't last.

Indeed, it did not. They set foot upon a spiral stair, one that wound its way gradually up to a heavy door made not of steel or iron, but of ancient bronze. An array of multicolored stones, similar to those that had served as the controls for the alarm system, adorned the wall beside the ponderous portal.

Neither mage needed even to ask. They knew this must mark the entrance to the tower itself.

Though it was utterly unnecessary, thanks to his mental hold over the elven commander, Jace gave the squat soldier a curt nod. Irivan stepped forward, waved a hand over the gems, and the door rose into the ceiling with a low rumble and another hiss of steam.

Never mind their guises now; Jace and Liliana simply stared, utterly rooted to the floor.

If what they'd seen so far was mechanized chaos, this was mechanized madness. Half a dozen circular platforms of various sizes, held aloft by perfectly smooth cables as thick as tree trunks, rose and fell throughout the tower's hollow center, perhaps providing access to the areas above. At no point did the spire boast anything resembling an actual story; balconies, rooms, and structures that might even have been small buildings, had they stood on their own, protruded from the wall at various heights. Some were linked to others by more catwalks; others by stairs and smaller lifts that ran along the wall; and still others could be reached only by the central platforms. And those chambers and "partial floors" moved in turn, rotating around the tower's circumference, slowly sliding up or down, so that none remained at the same height for more than a few moments at a time. Between and around them, great pulleys and more rapidly pulsing orbs of light orchestrated the endless metal ballet that kept the tower in constant motion, yet somehow prevented so much as a single cable from becoming tangled with any other.

It made no sense, couldn't possibly make sense. Jace could imagine no purpose to it, no reason for someone to construct such a convoluted structure, unless…

Unless it wasn't a structure at all.

"It's an artifact," he whispered.

"What?" Liliana asked him, tearing her gaze from the slow dance above. "What is?"

"This. This place. The cables, the rising levels… The whole thing's an eldritch machine, Liliana. An artifact, not a building. It just happens to also have people in it."

She sucked in her breath, looking around her. "An artifact that does what? Surely this whole structure can't just be devoted to converting one type of mana into another."

Jace shrugged. "When we find Tezzeret, I'll be sure to ask him."

Shifting his attention from the apparatus above, Jace took a moment to examine his immediate surroundings. The floor was the same odd metal as the glowing spheres, and indeed it emanated a faint reddish pulse. It was a diabolical illumination, like a flame frozen solid, painting streaks of crimson across a series of round railings-present to keep people from stepping under the platforms and being crushed, Jace assumed. A number of doors, which could only lead to a relatively small array of rooms, surrounded the tower's perimeter. Those, and a perfectly smooth bronze spire standing roughly eight feet tall in the precise center of the tower, were the chamber's only obvious features.

"I, uh… I guess we head over and wait for one of the platforms," Jace offered halfheartedly. "Maybe there's a lever to summon one, or something."

Liliana had nothing better to offer, and Irivan had never been summoned into the heights of the tower itself, so that appeared to be their only option. Their footsteps resounded on the glowing floor, and their shadows flickered so rapidly in all directions, lit horribly from below, that it seemed they must detach from their masters and take independent flight.

The nearer they drew to the center of the room, the worse Jace's suspicions about the bronze pillar grew. When the entire device suddenly shuddered and split into ten insectoid legs of spindly bronze, topped by a "head" of clattering jutting, animated needles, Jace couldn't honestly claim to be even remotely surprised.

It skittered toward them, a hideous screech arising with each touch of its legs upon the metal below. As it neared, it no longer appeared to Jace as an insect, but almost as a pair of disembodied hands, joined at the wrists and scuttling on skeletal fingers.

A dozen feet from them it halted, shifting side to side as though eager to pounce. The jagged mass atop the legs clicked and spat, spines protruding in and out, a sewing machine grown mad. A thin iris of bronze amid the gears slid open, revealing a lens of verdigris-tinted glass.

The damn thing was studying them!

Jace sent a frantic command, and Irivan snapped to attention. He and Liliana followed a split second later, and the trio stood ready for inspection.

Maybe it was the wrong response, but Jace didn't think so. He swore the thing looked right at him, lens seeming to bulge in surprise, before it lurched again into motion.

With an indifference possible only in a machine, it hurled Irivan aside as it rushed to engage its true target. Jace dived to his left, hitting the floor in a painful roll and rising once more to his feet, as it thrust its jagged head and pumping spines through the space where he'd previously stood. He flung a spear of telekinetic force from his outstretched hand even as Liliana moved in behind the construct and tried to surround it with the same mass of shadowy fragments that had carried away her attacker's blade back in the Bitter End. But the former hardly even staggered the mechanized beast, and the latter seemed to splatter like water as they closed around one artificial leg.

It kicked back at her, and now it was Liliana's turn to dive away lest she find herself crushed or impaled on the great bronze limb. In the same motion it leaped forward, spinning to land beside Jace once more. A desperate shield of force was all that saved him from bearing the brunt of another kick, and even through his protective spell the impact was enough to send him skidding. He groaned as the friction against the floor ripped cloth from his trousers and skin from his thigh. The blood threatened to glue his cloak to the injury as he staggered once more to his feet.

No illusions; no mind-control; no necromantic enervation; Jace and Liliana were fast running out of options. He had no doubt that either of them could summon something great enough to crush the mechanical monster, but doing so would take more power, more mana, than Jace felt they could afford to spend when they'd not yet even found Tezzeret. He gave ground steadily before the machine's relentless advance, feet threatening to slide out from under him on the perfectly smooth surface, and struggled desperately to come up with some other option.

And then he saw Liliana wave, saw where she stood and the lever at which she pointed, and nodded his understanding.

The construct took to the air once more, and Jace dived under it, rolling to his feet and sprinting as fast as his wounded leg would allow. The entire floor shuddered as the beast landed and took off in pursuit. Swiftly, all too swiftly, the vibrations beneath him grew stronger, and he knew the construct was gaining.

A third dive to the side, but the machine had learned to anticipate the trick. A leg lashed out, pinning the hem of Jace's cloak to the floor. Yanked backward in midair, choking through a bruised throat, he landed hard on his back and lay still as the tower spun dizzyingly above. Only the creak of metal, the image of the construct's bulk heaving into sight above him, spurred him to action once more. Tearing open the cloak's broach he rolled swiftly to his right. One leg, a second, a third pounded the floor mere inches behind him as he rolled-and then a fourth came down in front of him, and only a desperate heave that agonizingly pulled every muscle in his torso kept him from barreling right into it.

Jace started to roll back to his left, but one of the bronze limbs thudded down there as well. He found himself staring upward, pinned by a cage of mechanical legs. Above him, the amalgamation of edges that was the golem's head plunged forward and down, as though along a hidden track, spines reaching thirstily for Jace's blood. Another telekinetic shield halted the assault inches from his flesh, and he could feel the weight, the strength of the monster, pressing on his mind.

He screamed beneath the strain, felt his bastion of force slowly start to give. A single spine, pressed forward by a piston of magic and steam, slowly sliced through his defenses and pressed deep into the muscle and flesh of his shoulder. Blood flowed, raining down between the slats onto the mechanisms below.

"Jace!" He scarcely heard her, over the creaking of the bronze and the pounding in his head. "Jace, now!"

Jace grinned up at the machine that threatened to kill him.

From behind them both, a fearsome roar shook the chamber. Jace all but sobbed in relief as the spike withdrew from his flesh, as the construct whipped its head around to see what new threat had emerged.

Wings spread wide, mouth agape in her deafening cry, the cerulean sphinx Jace had summoned to his aid twice before slammed into the construct, lifting it, thrashing and twitching, into the air.

Hurry! he thought desperately to his feline ally. Jace knew that, given even a moment to recover, the machine could shred her like cobweb. Hurry!

Another cry, and the sphinx released her prey. Legs waving helplessly, it sailed across the chamber, slamming into, and through, one of the circular railings near the room's center.

Sparks flew, and the construct finally skidded to a halt on its back. Ten legs twisted, reversing their position; the head of gears slid upward through the body, emerging on what had been the underside; and the mechanized beast was on its feet once more.

Thankfully, fast as it was, it was much too late.

Even as it rose, its head struck the flat surface of the platform descending on top of it, the lift platform Liliana had summoned with the tug of a lever. Designed to haul dozens if not hundreds of tons from the floor of the tower, it was a weight and a pressure not even the construct could withstand. Thrashing wildly, bronze limbs bent and snapped beneath the weight of the lift. A groan, the final crack of rending metal, and the platform settled evenly to the floor, bits of bronze debris splayed out beside it. The sphinx lay sprawled atop the lift, a look of contentment on her face.

Jace and Liliana moved together, standing back to back, braced for another attack, but nothing came. The platforms continued their intricate dance, the cables twisted and turned, but nothing more.

Liliana looked at Jace, who could only shrug. "The walls are thick, and the machines are noisy," he theorized. "Maybe nobody heard?"

"I don't like it," Liliana told him bluntly. "You really think there are no guards inside this entire tower?"

"I think I'll take whatever luck falls my way," Jace told her. Then again, there was no telling how long it would take before some guard did wander through. "But, uh, let's get the wreckage out of sight, shall we?"

"Right, because nobody's going to notice the missing pillar," Liliana scoffed. Still, she moved to help with the smaller bits, even as the sphinx-her expression one of arrogant disdain-rose, stretched languidly, and began batting the larger ones across the floor.

It never occurred to either of them to wonder who else might have been watching through the construct's eye.

In the end, they found that several of the doors on the tower's perimeter led to supply closets, and chose one as the repository for the random bits of bronze, as well as the corpse of Irivan, who hadn't survived being brushed aside by the charging construct. With a nod of thanks for her help, Jace dismissed the sphinx; useful in battle as she was, she wasn't precisely inconspicuous.

He took a moment, stretching out the kinks in his back and flinging his tattered cloak back over his shoulders. "Stay here," he said then, fading into invisibility as he moved toward the door. "I want to take a quick look around, make absolutely certain that we haven't attracted any attention."

"Wait, what? Jace, hold on-" But he was already gone, the door drifting shut in his wake.

Liliana cursed, roundly and for several minutes. What was he thinking? The last thing they needed now was to get separated-and she definitely couldn't afford to lose track of what he was up to. They were so close now, she was so close, and yet this could still so easily go completely sideways.

As if to prove the point, the door creaked open, but it was not Jace Beleren standing therein.

"What by all the Eternities are you doing here?" Baltrice demanded, flames crackling between the fingers of her left hand.

Already on edge, Liliana felt the first stirrings of real panic. How much did Baltrice know? What had Tezzeret told her of their meeting? "Get out of here! You'll ruin everything!" she hissed desperately. "Damn it, go check with your boss! He'll tell you whose side I'm on!"

"No," Baltrice said, suddenly fading away into nothingness. "You've already done that."

Liliana's head fell, her eyes closing of their own accord. "Jace." She forced herself to look up, just in time to see him shimmer into being before her. "Jace, you don't understand. I-"

The breath rushed from her lungs as Jace wrapped his fists in her tunic and slammed her against the rear wall of the chamber.

"Damn you!" He literally shook her, somehow finding the strength in his slender form to hold her completely off the floor. Worse, she felt his anger not merely in his grip, but in her own mind, waves pounding against her thoughts, disorienting her until she wasn't certain she could even stand were he to let her go. "How could you do this to me?"

"Jace-"

"I trusted you, Liliana! I loved you!" His eyes glowed a cobalt blue to light up the entire chamber, and the necromancer could feel the power gathering within his soul. He'd been so sure, so certain that he was imagining things, that his suspicions were nothing but paranoia. His test, his illusion, they'd been meant to assuage his worries before moving on, not…

Not this.

"Jace," she tried again, placing one hand atop his own, feeling the muscles and tendons flexing within, "I swear to you, I can explain. But not now, not when we're so close! This isn't the time!"

"Actually," Tezzeret's oily voice oozed from the open doorway, "I think it's the perfect time."