The Keepers (42 page)

Chloe reached in for him, her thin fingers straining. “Here!” she shouted. Horace reached out too, but just as he
did, a cold, strong grip enveloped his foot, as if it had been encased in concrete. The golem pulled on him with irresistible power. The stones crept up his leg toward the Fel'Daera. Horace rolled, and the bar beneath his chest gave way, broken loose by his weight and the golem's. Horace fell to the ground as the scaffolding began coming apart all around, snapping and screeching and clattering with a roar to rival the golem's. He threw his hands over his face. Overhead, the entire structure buckled, beginning to collapse back into the body of the golem.

Suddenly Horace was free. He kicked out hard, scattering a bucketful of the golem's stones. He scrambled forward, crawling under and then over the last few bars of the scaffold. He fell at Chloe's feet just as the near end gave way with a cascade of snaps and cracks and clangs. The scaffold plunged, a shower of swords and hammers, pushing the golem back, beating it down into the dust that bloomed all around.

“Get up!” Chloe yelled. Her jithandra glowed like a beacon. “That won't stop it for long.”

They ran. Behind them the golem thrashed, trying to gather itself out of the wreckage of the scaffold. They pushed aside a heavy, musty curtain and found themselves running along a wide hallway backstage. Halfway down, Chloe slid to a stop in front of a broad, square opening in the wall, Horace at her side.

It was an elevator shaft. Cables stretched upward into the shadows above. At their feet, Horace could see the top of an
elevator car, apparently caught between this floor and the one below.

Chloe stepped out onto the elevator car. She knelt and quickly found the handle of a hatch in the top of the car. “In here.”

“Are you crazy?” Horace said.

Chloe twisted the handle. The hatch fell open with a
squawk
, and she bent into the darkness. “The doors are partway open. We can climb out into the next level down. Come on.” Without waiting for an answer, she swung her legs into the hatch and dropped out of sight. Horace hesitated. Where was Gabriel? How would they find him again? But just then, from back behind, a crash and a truck-sized rumble announced that the golem was free. Immediately, Horace stepped out onto the elevator car. It was sturdy underfoot. He climbed down through the hatch, scraping his belly in the process. He dropped and landed heavily inside the car, hoping Chloe knew what she was doing.

And she did, of course. The elevator was trapped between floors, but the doors were halfway open; they could see a thick cross section of concrete and metal that was the floor of the theater itself—a bizarre sight. Beneath that, the doors looked out onto a new corridor below. The basement. Dusty cobwebs hung across the opening like seaweed. Lips pursed tight, Chloe swept away a palmful. The opening was small, no bigger than an open window, and the drop to the floor below looked to be four or five feet, but they could make it.

Chloe slithered through gracefully. Horace clambered out after her, hitting the floor with a grunt, stumbling. He heard the golem come roaring down the hallway above them and then stop, directly overhead.

“We'll use the dumin,” Chloe said, looking up at the ceiling. “We can block off the whole elevator shaft. The golem won't be able to get through—just like back at the warehouse.”

Horace shook his head, unwilling to use the dumin so early, when they hadn't so much as glimpsed any Riven, much less Chloe's dad. “No. Not yet. We've got to find Gab—”

Suddenly, a voice down the hall. But not a human voice. This was sharp and slashing, speaking a language full of hisses and cracks. And then a lean figure appeared in the gloom, far ahead. Not nearly so tall as a Mordin, but it wasn't a man, either. Lanky, with long, swinging arms, and skin so pale it seemed to almost glow in the dark. Now another figure joined the first.

The Riven. Horace and Chloe hadn't been spotted yet, but they were trapped. Horace looked back—the dangling elevator car was too high to climb back into easily, and anyway the golem still lurked above. But beneath the car, the elevator shaft ended in a dingy pit, waist-deep. Not stopping to think, Horace dropped into the pit. A moment later, in the red glow of her jithandra, Chloe landed beside him on all fours like a cat.

They pressed themselves back against the front wall, beneath the lip of the opening. Chloe's jithandra was clenched
in her fist, turning her fingers pink. Horace doused his own light. He tried not to think about the tiny space they were in, or the elevator suspended overhead.

Metal screeched brutally, directly above. The golem was on the move again, following their trail. It sounded like it was tearing the roof of the elevator car open. And then the shaft shook with the deafening noise of the golem pouring into the elevator, making Horace slap his hands over his ears. But after a moment there came another sound, new and deep and alarming—a great groaning creak from somewhere overhead. Horace looked up, horrified. He hadn't considered how heavy the golem must be. The elevator car jolted and shivered, and then something cracked.

The elevator fell.

Horace twisted onto his side, throwing up his arm as if he could keep the elevator from crushing him. In the same moment, Chloe's light winked out completely as she went to the ground too. Horace clutched the box, waiting to be crushed.

But they weren't crushed. The groan came to an abrupt halt, somewhere overhead in the utter dark. Now a series of pops, and another heart-stopping creak. Horace felt a push of air against his raised palm. And then from just outside the pit came the familiar tumble of an ocean of rocks—the golem pouring itself into the corridor. It seemed to go on forever.

Horace tried to listen past the sound of his blood thudding in his ears. He began counting. After ten interminable
seconds, the elevator car emptied, and outside in the hallway—unmistakably—the golem's avalanche began moving away, headed deeper into the basement. Still Horace lay there, paralyzed and hurting. A massive metal spring dug into his ribs. He itched to uncover his jithandra but was terrified of what he might see—had the elevator fallen so far that they were now trapped in this dark and dusty pit?

The roar of the golem grew more and more faint.
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen
. . . At last Horace could stand it no more. He fumbled into his shirt and pulled out his jithandra, letting it spring to life. His chest heaved as he saw the bottom of the elevator just overhead, inches from where his outstretched hand had been. It had stopped just in time, leaving a foot-high gap through which they would be able to escape the pit—barely.

Beside him, Chloe straightened out of a fetal position, also eyeing the elevator warily. “That was close,” she said. “I almost went thin.”

Horace swallowed, trying to stay calm. “I think we both almost went thin, if you know what I mean.”

“We need to get you out of here,” Chloe said. “But first let me see if the coast is clear.” Horace nodded. They would have to squeeze through while the elevator's weight hung above them—not a pleasant thought, but almost anything was better than staying here.

Chloe peeked out over the lip of the pit. Horace couldn't hear anything, not even the golem now. But suddenly Chloe
gestured for him to extinguish his light.

They sank into darkness again. After a moment, though, Horace realized he could see Chloe in the gloom—a faint green light filtered through the crack and lit her face. “Don't move,” she whispered, scarcely audible. Chloe lifted her nose and mouth into the light and sniffed—once, twice.

Horace did the same. Cutting through thick odors of damp and dust and mold, a piercing scent stung his nose, a sharp smell like a lit match.

Brimstone.

The crucible.

The green light grew, becoming deep and brilliant and glimmering, like the sun through water. It swayed thickly into the shaft. Chloe's eyes grew wide. “I see it,” she said, her voice full of wonder, and then Horace was on his knees too, in the light dazzling and warm. It pulled at him, cradling him. There was the source, down the shadowed corridor—a rippling sliver of green light cracking the darkness open, as though they were inside an immense, slitted eye, looking out into an ocean sparkling under an emerald sun. Chloe said something, but Horace couldn't understand it. The scent of the light bit at his brain, the heat wrapping him in its hand, drawing him like a current. He could hear it now, crackling and sighing like water over rocks. There were other figures in that light, shifting and waiting. One of them was a great beast on all fours. But far from being afraid, Horace wanted to come closer. He wanted to be beside the beast, basking
near the source. What if it did not wait for him? What if it did not see him? Despair filled him at the thought. He began to squeeze out of the pit, scratching at the floor, trying to pull himself toward the light. Dimly he was aware of Chloe at his side, doing the same.

And then the light was swallowed. Everything went gray. Horace cried out, but his words were buried in this new fog. The light was torn from him—the brilliance, the warmth, the low hissing song, the sting of its scent. A faint buzz in the back of his mind wouldn't leave him; he couldn't name it, couldn't shake it. There were voices, angry and confused and distant.

A new voice rang out, deep and near, everywhere at once. It spoke their names.

“Horace,” it said. “Chloe.” The voice filled the world like a mighty wave, like the tremble of the earth itself. Horace tried to answer the voice, full of rage that the light had been taken from him. He tried to push the name he knew to his lips, but he could not speak. He mouthed it instead, seething, knowing he would be heard.

Gabriel!

“K
EEPER OF THE
F
EL
'D
AERA
,”
SAID
G
ABRIEL
. “K
EEPER OF
the Alvalaithen. Remember yourselves, Wardens. Get back. Hide from the crucible.”

The crucible. The word summoned up the image of a cruel and grasping hand of steel. The crucible, yes, still somewhere out in that cloud, and Horace had been crawling toward it. But now Gabriel was keeping them all hidden, blinding the Keeper of the crucible and dousing that terrible, wonderful light—sound and sight and smell.

Horace pushed himself back into the elevator shaft, squeezing beneath the elevator. He thought he heard Chloe moving too, faint and distant. Sagging into the elevator shaft, Horace kept his eyes open, letting the vast blankness of the humour wash away the memory of the green light. He breathed in through his mouth and out through his nose,
trying to rid himself of the stench.

“Stay low,” said Gabriel. “The dog is searching for you. It searches for me as best it can.” A long pause; Horace had the sense Gabriel was on the move within the humour. When Gabriel's voice returned, it was still everywhere: “There are men with the crucible dog, three of them. How will I recognize your father, Chloe?”

Chloe's voice spilled out of the ether. “The pinkie on his right hand. The tip is missing.”

Almost immediately Gabriel responded: “He is here. Is this the moment, then?”

When Chloe didn't answer, Horace knew these words were meant for him. He stared into the humour, thinking hard, remembering why he was here. The plan surfaced in his mind like a sunken ship being raised: find Chloe's father; get him out. But the Fel'Daera could derail even the simplest plan, and on this night the box had revealed the unthinkable—Chloe, allowing herself to be captured, returning to the nest.

Horace was sure of what he'd seen, but he couldn't be sure he was interpreting it correctly. He had already come into the nest believing that he himself, armed with the knowledge that the box gave him, would set into motion the events that would lead to Chloe's recapture. But was that right? For a moment he felt dizzy with doubt. There would be many turnings along this path, many choices that would be his and his alone—and this was only one of them.

“We must act,” Gabriel said, his voice insistent and
strained. “One way or another. I must move. The golem will return. Is this the moment?”

“Answer him, Horace,” Chloe's voice urged. “You're the Keeper of the Fel'Daera.”

Horace shoved his doubts aside. They needed his help. They trusted him, Chloe and Gabriel both. Chloe, in fact, was trusting him with her father's life. “No,” Horace said resolutely. “No, this isn't the time.” He would believe in himself, believe in the Fel'Daera. “I'm sorry,” he added—not for Gabriel, but for Chloe.

Gabriel's voice came back flat and somber. “Do we stay in the nest, or try to escape?”

Horace's eyes roved through the emptiness around him, searching uselessly for Chloe. What must she be thinking? “We stay. If we leave now, we'll never get back in.”