Chasing Sunlight

The inhabitant of the deserted city took no form that could be seen or heard, no skin of flesh or shadow. It was a raw force of lonely longing and a sweet, sharp-edged nostalgia for the very moment of dying. Not death itself, nor life either, but that infinitesimal moment poised halfway into the abyss. Its presence carried tender memories of the last lingering instant before oblivion, of life draining away into nothingness. The emotions and images hammered into them, sending everyone staggering save for the two Lux Guards.

Not even Jonathan was immune, despite the sunlight that brimmed within him. Nothing was immune to death, and the ideation of dying found purchase in everything, flesh or stone or insubstantial dreams. He found himself clutching his cane in a white-knuckled grip as he fought off the sudden beckoning temptation to use that very cane on his own throat, or to dash his head on the stone. Anything to reach that exquisite moment.

“I can’t—” Eleanor said, gripping her dagger with trembling fingers, though it was difficult to tell if the trembling came from weakness or strength. Sarah and Marie had simply fainted under the pressure. Antomine, however, straightened up as his eyes glowed, and at his gesture James – or perhaps it was John – scooped Eleanor up, plucking away her dagger before she could use it. The other one went to assist the maids, while Jonathan centered himself, finding all those pieces of himself that held anything but sunlight. Even if he could not cast them aside, knowing they were not his thoughts was enough to turn them into a mere insistent murmuring in the back of his mind. At length he managed to straighten, though the presence had hardly diminished. The saboteur’s death had merely whetted its appetite, and now it wanted more from them.

“We must leave now,” Antomine said, as if it weren’t obvious. Jonathan forced his muscles to work and reached out with his cane to hook the sled that the saboteur had brought along with him. Jonathan had already forgotten the irrelevant man’s name, the body crumbling into red stone, mortal clay claimed by the city.

Even with such lethal hungers battering at his brain, Jonathan was mindful of the reason they’d come. He pulled open the bag sitting on the top of the sled, and a brilliant zint glow shone forth from the stolen luminiferous gems, still slotted into the broken-off chunk of glass and steel that had been taken from the Endeavor. Jonathan snatched it up and turned to go.

“I need that,” Antomine said, reaching for the mechanism. Jonathan nearly yanked it back, but stilled himself. Sunlight required such iron discipline to contain that even the city's clamoring lust for death could not dispossess him — nor would he allow Antomine to do so. The inquisitor was not the enemy, and so he dropped the zint device into waiting hands.

The gems blazed up, then dimmed as Antomine’s eyes glowed nearly as brightly. The mental assault dimmed, not vanishing entirely but receding to a background scratching of suicidal contemplation. That made it far easier to ignore, as Jonathan was not and had never been inclined in that direction. The Lux Guards’ immunity to it was less easy to explain, but Jonathan had long suspected they had been touched and altered by the Illuminated King. Most likely, their lives were not their own to spend.

“Oof, that’s better,” Eleanor said, regaining her own feet and pulling slightly away from the guard holding her elbow. A quick, reflexive motion retrieved her dagger and stowed it in a hidden sheath. “Thanks, Antomine.”

“Indeed,” Jonathan said, following Eleanor’s lead and giving Antomine the proper consideration. “Thank you.”

Jonathan looked around, finding that the pristine and empty red stone room was just as they had left it. Whatever inhabited the city, whatever its deviant hungers, nothing had physically changed. By mutual unspoken agreement they all hastened out the way they’d come; even if Sarah and Marie were unconscious, Jonathan could retrace their path without help.

When they stepped out of the malformed doorway, the strange and alien sameness of the city struck much harder. Every corner was a sharp edge inviting them to cut a wrist or throat, every street edge a convenient place to trip and so break a neck or dash a head open against the street. It was like walking drunk into an abyss of knives, with every plane and angle offering an opportunity for injury and death — yet it was just a street in a city.

Jonathan planted his cane firmly on the stone in denial of danger and invitation both, a sudden report that did not echo from the many-angled walls. Nevertheless, it served to ground his perceptions for a few moments and jolted Eleanor out of her contemplations. Of all of them, it seemed Antomine was the least affected, though his eyes still blazed with internal illumination.

“This way,” Antomine said, striding forward, for once taking the lead and setting the pace. Jonathan let him, but stayed close at his elbow to provide direction should he stray from the return path. After only a few moments the city began to subvert the dull sound of boots on stone, and the tapping of Jonathan’s cane. Each sound became the rustle of Jonathan drawing his blade, of Eleanor taking out her dagger, or the click of a zint-pistol being primed. Anything that might lead to that exquisite moment of dying.

It was almost enough to make Jonathan miss the way the city had changed. They rounded knife-edged corners, finding more identical streets, identical buildings, but not the ones Jonathan expected. His memory was sharp, and the left and the rights he was expecting did not appear. He did not stop, for the direction was correct even if the path was not, but looked closely at every building and intersection — though every exposed surface tempted cuts and contusions with each glance.

Nothing shifted within view, but every corner they took was altered, as if the streets no longer linked to each other in the same way. After three intersections, the buildings had even more corners than before, the street edges jagged to catch at boots and clothes. After five, the streetlamps etched the air with a readiness to topple, to pulp flesh and shatter bones. Threats were proven to have substance as Jonathan turned too quickly and the glint of a curb half a block away drew a bloodless line across his cheek.

“Can you do anything further?” He asked Antomine, eyes narrowed as the city’s lust crowded in around them. The Endeavor itself was safe, considering the plaque he’d given them, but time and distance were an issue. At some point the plaque would have to come off, or else they’d risk permanent damage, and there was still a stretch of city left to cover — foreign city, with a layout to balk and undo them in every direction.

“No,” Antomine said shortly.

Jonathan paused to consider the matter, Eleanor scowling around with her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her greatcoat. Of them all, her maids likely had the easiest time of it, for semiconscious as they were they couldn’t discern the dangers that lurked about and so were immune to them. He could perhaps approach things differently if he were on his own, but he was not prepared to throw away Eleanor and Antomine just yet.

“Then perhaps we should simply go in a straight line.” Jonathan removed his pistol from his belt and offered it to Antomine. “The best way to stymie such a place is to refuse to play by its rules.” The city’s lusts had been disconcerting, but he had the measure now.

“I see,” Antomine said, frowning as he took the weapon. He didn’t try to hide what he could do, at least, and extracted the luminiferous gems with quick movements, stuffing the mechanism in a pocket. He held the gems in one hand, taking aim with the other, pistol held in a firm grip. Jonathan corrected the trajectory, sure of his bearings as he pointed Antomine back toward the ship.

The inquisitor focused and then pulled the trigger. The beam flared like a bolt of lightning, fading only slowly and leaving a round hole punched through walls and lampposts, sizzling and flickering at the edges with the blue-white glow of zint. The lingering remnants of the shot outlined a path all the way to a point of gas-lamp illumination, which Jonathan’s eyes could pick out from the surrounding darkness.

“Go.” Jonathan said, and Eleanor sprinted ahead, followed by Antomine’s guards with their burdens. Jonathan took the rear, behind Antomine, while the city swirled uncertainly around the new additions as if deciding what manner of death befit them. Or perhaps the changes would simply be gone in a few moments, vanishing when they were out of sight once more.

They sprinted through while they had the chance, leaping the hurdle of the bit of wall that remained above the ground and ducking to fit through the holes, which was slightly smaller than a man upright. The damage hadn’t reached the same scale as the artillery Antomine had handled, but was more than enough to deal with the obstacles the city had thrown in their path. While brute force didn’t always work, it could be shockingly effective even against esoteric threats.

Jonathan had made it halfway along the shortcut when the city’s obsession returned in full force, turning every hole into a gate to oblivion and all remaining light into something that would cut and burn and sever. None of it was true, all of it was perception, but the emotion and desire to fail and fall washed over them with such force that it nearly did the job by itself.

He let some of his control loose, feeling the pure presence of sunlight bubbling up out of his soul and chasing away the city’s whispered suggestions. Under its dominion nothing else seemed to matter, no other influence could take hold, but there was a risk that he might lose sight of all the steps between him and it. He well knew how dangerous it was to lose himself in the feeling, no matter how much he wanted to.

Antomine faltered, and Jonathan hefted him up and kept running. The inquisitor’s weight was no trouble, and it only took a few steps to adjust his balance. A few drops of blood dripped from Antomine’s fingertip from some injury Jonathan hadn’t seen, glowing with the same zint-light as the man’s eyes.

Eleanor, despite her earlier issues, seemed to have no trouble vaulting through the holes, faltering not at all from the pressing, heady need to stop and bleed out. In a straight line, the distance back to the ship was barely worth mentioning, and it only required a minute or so of full sprint to break out into the open once again. The Endeavor floated there, similar and yet not, a stranger disguised by the unknowable ship’s name that covered hers, and the death-drunk city rising on either side made even Jonathan question for an instant if they were where they were supposed to be.

Then the moment past, he shook it off, and everyone made for the tether still fastened to the bridge. So far the city had not marshalled anything more than feeling and perception against them, and Jonathan did not want to give it time to bring any actual force or creature to the fore. The pair of crew at the descent line, the brawny and wiry pair that he’d seen several times before, signaled with whistles. They could hardly have missed the sudden change in the city’s attitude, and Jonathan had a grudging respect for how they’d stayed on the ground. Even if they weren’t the focus of the city’s attention, they had still been subject to its effect.

The people at the top started winding in the line, and Jonathan grabbed onto one of the line’s handholds just after Eleanor, wedging his boot into another and still holding onto Antomine. The young inquisitor seemed to be reviving, but there wasn’t any point in sorting things out until they were back aboard. The two airmen clung to the end of the tether, after the guards, the weighted end swinging into the air just as Eleanor reached the bottom deck.

She stumbled there, looking slightly ragged, and Jonathan was next, setting Antomine down on unsteady feet next to her and running his hands over his suit. The others had ragged rips in their clothing, but his was as neat and spotless as ever. Eleanor took charge of her maids as Antomine’s guards brought them in, thanking James and John with quiet words as she revived Sarah and Marie.

“Do we need to untether?” Jonathan twisted at the question from the bos’n, who had appeared in a rush from the stairwell.

“I don’t believe so,” Jonathan said as the ideation of dying had vanished now that they couldn’t see the city. He inclined his head in Antomine’s direction. “Mister Antomine has the device and the gems. I do hope not much is necessary to resume our journey.”

“And Airman Robert?”

“Dead,” Jonathan said shortly. The bos’n grunted, not particularly upset.

“Which is something we will be discussing,” Antomine said darkly, but reached into his pocket for the bit of steel and glass, and handed it off to the bos’n, along with the pair of glowing gems. The bos’n disappeared back up the stairs as the brawny and wiry pair of airmen secured the descent line and closed the external hatches.

“You know, I thought this was supposed to be the safe route,” Eleanor grumbled, and Marie gave Jonathan a deep frown. Sarah was rubbing her throat, and though Jonathan couldn’t see any marks upon her, that didn’t mean she was unharmed.

“It is,” Jonathan said. “Or at least, the one with the least known dangers. Though we could have avoided this city if we had gone by the Bitter Pass,” he added, with a sharp look at Antomine. “Even with the sabotage we would have ended up in a more favorable location. Despite this danger, other routes would have worse — ravenous savages and lethal weather are the least of what they hold.”

“At least bad weather wouldn’t make me feel like — like dying is the sweetest goal I could ever achieve,” Eleanor said, shuddering. Her discontent wasn’t entirely directed at him. “You managing, Sarah?”

“I am now,” the maid replied, coughing and covering her mouth with a sleeve before taking a long breath. “Marie?”

“That was awful,” Marie said bluntly, and Jonathan left the three women to commiserate. He hadn’t much enjoyed the experience himself, but now that it was resolved he saw no point in recapitulating it. Nor was there anything he could do to address their issues, as the city had assaulted their minds more than their bodies — any weakness there could only be addressed from within.

Antomine strode after him, and Jonathan slowed his steps so they didn’t turn into some ridiculous burlesque of pursuer and pursued. If the inquisitor had something to say to him, Jonathan saw no need to avoid it — yet it was best to be done in private. Airing grievances was not something to be performed in front of the crew.

They climbed to the third floor and by silent mutual agreement made for the observation room. Once inside Jonathan planted his cane on the floor, hands interlaced atop it and regarding Antomine with something barely short of disfavor. He was willing to listen to Antomine, but the moralizing lectures of the King’s Inquisition were something he could do without.

“Mister Heights,” Antomine said at length, taking off his wide-brimmed hat and setting it on one of the chairs bolted to the floor, dropping Jonathan’s pistol next to it. “You realize you just committed murder in front of a member of the Inquisition.”

“Hardly,” Jonathan said, unworried by the accusation. “You are too intelligent to be so disingenuous. The only laws out in the black are those of custom, tradition, and power. That man betrayed us, could have killed us all, and stole from us. At best he would have been thrown off the ship without a flight suit.”

“Perhaps that is the case, but it is not your place to do so.” Antomine frowned, his hand reaching up to touch the inquisitor’s medallion around his neck. “So far from civilization it is even more important we follow every rule of propriety, for nobody else will enforce them. If we don’t follow them, none will, and we risk degenerating to madness.”

“I hardly think that removing someone who has absolutely earned it is going to set us on a path to destruction,” Jonathan said, shaking his head at Antomine.

“It is never one single act that damns a man,” Antomine retorted. “Besides which, ‘setting us on a path to destruction’ is precisely what happened. Simply bringing him back would have been safer for all involved. The only reason for you to kill him then was for your personal satisfaction alone. Mister Heights, I will not have that aboard a human vessel.”

His eyes flashed, the white pupils blazing as he squared his shoulders, but he didn’t make either an ultimatum or a threat. It was a statement of fact, and both of them knew that pushing against it would result in consequences neither of them were quite ready for. Jonathan regarded Antomine, brow wrinkled, for several long moments before speaking.

“I will not be dictated to, Mister Antomine,” he said at last. “I will do whatever I deem necessary. However — you do have a certain point about inappropriate judgement. Unless there is no time, I will make an effort to defer those sorts of situations to you.” Jonathan refused to commit himself more firmly and, given Antomine’s abilities, even if he were inclined to lie it would be useless.

“Very well.” Antomine didn’t appear to be particularly happy, but he seemed to recognize that was the best he would get from Jonathan. After studying Jonathan’s face for a few more moments, Antomine sighed and picked up his hat again. Without any further words he turned and left, heading back to his cabin.

Jonathan was aware that in many ways Antomine was being very accommodating. As an inquisitor and the direct hand of the Illuminated King, it was his duty to deliver the law, every aspect of it, wherever he was. Pragmatically, they rarely went beyond the bounds of the kingdom for that very reason, as they would conflict with the needs and desires of captains or of non-human individuals to be found on the periphery of human civilization.

It took a certain flexibility of mind – one that most inquisitors didn’t have – to deal with reality beyond the walls of Beacon, and any other inquisitor would likely have tried to charge him with murder. The simple private discussion was almost treasonous from that point of view, which itself made him reevaluate Antomine once again. That level of moral flexibility, combined with a zealot’s assurance, was extremely dangerous.

He picked up the pistol, noting that not only was it exhausted of zint, but the glass was fogged and pitted, and returned to his own cabin. Tossing the useless weapon in the drawer of his desk, he went to inspect the cut on his cheek and found it essentially invisible and already healing, and so not worth the worry. With that resolved, he retrieved the notebook that described Angkor Leng and returned to the middle deck. Provided there were no other distractions, their next destination would be one he had actually intended.

Eleanor nearly bumped into him as she exited the stairwell, and he stood aside to allow her to pass by with her two maids trailing behind. Antomine had his own defenses and Jonathan had been able to reject the city’s whispers entirely, but she was clearly shaken from being forced into a nightmare of mortality and ending. He kept his silence as she gave him a sour look and vanished into her own room, and proceeded down to the bridge.

For all there were few true repairs needed once the missing component and gems had been replaced, it still took half a day for the Endeavor’s engines to power up again. By then the plaque was cracked and tarnished, its effect broken, and they removed it before they ascended. Airmen loosed the tethers from the bridge below, and the ship rose into the air. The deck swayed as the wind from the mountain fought with the power of the engines, but they steadied and soon left the city of ravenous dying behind in the darkness. Jameson had already marked the city on the map, and surely had filled in the details in the ship’s logbook.

“Angkor Leng was built by the same races that created Tor Ilek,” Jonathan said once they were properly on their way again, speaking to both Montgomery and Jameson. They were making good time, and would soon be at the end of the massive statue’s remains. “It’s rather difficult to get to, being located entirely in the extra degrees of a circle.” He gestured to the odd compass he had constructed. “When we get to the area, the fastest way is to simply steer in the direction that shows you — it will send you in an odd path, but it works.”

“At least we don’t have to replace the wheel,” Montgomery said, even though the ship’s wheel was only the smallest aspect of controlling its heading. “What are our odds of there being something else waiting there? Haven’t had the best track record with these cities.”

“I am somewhat more familiar with Angkor Leng than the other places,” Jonathan replied. “There are certain hazards, but they are easily avoided. I intend to direct the Endeavor to a section of the city where we will be appropriately sheltered from anything else that may be passing through.”

“Not living there?” Montgomery asked, taking a draw on his pipe and eyeing Jonathan speculatively.

“Finding it is issue enough; what might live there stays down in the depths, and if I have my say we’ll never venture below street level.” Jonathan leaned on his cane, looking out as the rugged red stone landscape slid by the Endeavor. “I can’t promise it’s entirely safe, but what is? Even Beacon has its hazards.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Montgomery said. “I do hear some mutters about Terminus still.”

“Now that is a dangerous place,” Jonathan said, and Montgomery grunted, understanding his point completely.

Jonathan had been somewhat overhasty in explaining their next destination, as it was over a day of travel before the red stone became less frequent and foliage began to appear in exposed soil. A river appeared, churning blue and grey as it ran past the last small mountain of the fallen statue’s head, sightless eyes staring forever upward, and then continued off to the place where Angkor Leng lay.

The city wasn’t visible, of course, though here and there was evidence of its proximity. Bridges lay across canyons cut by the river, connected to roads that went nowhere. Patches of remnant civilization spotted the scarred and overgrown land, hinting at the presence of something larger but not resolving into any real pattern. Without Angkor Leng none of it made sense.

The pilot kept his eyes locked upon the strange compass, sending the ship through long, slow spirals, first one way and then another. The engines labored as the compass swung sharply, forcing the Endeavor to hold itself in place as it tried to rotate, following the odd and indirect path as best it could. The landscape below changed subtly, the random spots of weathered road and crumbled building spreading and flowing as the angles changed, until suddenly domes and spires emerged from where they’d always been.

Angkor Leng was desiccated rather than rotted; the worn and pitted stone shrunken and clinging to metal skeletons, cracked here and there as if it had been stretched too far. No rust spotted the exposed steel, the metal shining and denuded like something polished too many times. The city exuded a worn and weary atmosphere under the Endeavor’s lights, as if it would slump into the ground at any moment — no matter that it had been that way for centuries as far as Jonathan could tell.

Jonathan stayed at the pilot’s elbow, trying to match the visible buildings to what he remembered of the city. The protruding spires and skeletal metal fingers reached up from domes below, forcing the Endeavor to move slowly and carefully, maneuvering down to an altitude where they could spot the landmarks. A flash of blue caught Jonathan’s eye and he pointed the pilot that direction, the color revealing itself as ceramic remnants of a dome mosaic with most of its tiles lost to the ages. The few that were left had vibrant colors rarely seen in nature: bright blue, brilliant yellow, and pristine white. What it had depicted was anyone’s guess.

“We can tether here,” Jonathan said. “This entire section of the city is deserted, and so long as nobody goes underground you should not disturb anything. The machinery here still works, and that is the primary danger — but an avoidable one, I feel. Simply refrain from touching buttons or levers unless I’ve examined them.”

“You’d think that would be simple,” Montgomery muttered, the stem of his pipe clamped between his teeth. Jonathan nodded in agreement.

“Especially since there are additional temptations here. Unless other scavengers have found this place – which I feel is unlikely – there is a significant amount of gold and silver that can be pried from the rooms below. But it is a hazardous endeavor without an understanding of the machines therein.”

“Ya hear that?” Montgomery said, half in fondness and half in frustration as he looked around the bridge. “It’s fool’s gold. I’m sure Mister Heights will have no problem helping us all secure a fortune but don’t go getting ideas about doing it yourself. We’re already shorthanded, and we don’t need to lose anyone else. Make sure the rest of the crew gets the message, Smythe.”

“Aye,” said the bos’n.

“And lets get tethered. That looks like a likely anchor.” Montgomery pointed at metal tower with his pipe stem, one with withered stone clinging to it like sinew and projecting from one side of the dome. “Might even be able to use some of that steel. Unless that’s a problem, Mister Heights?”

“I don’t believe so,” Jonathan said with a frown. “I’ve had no issues taking anything, though I am no metallurgist and I trust you will test the material before relying upon it.”

“’Course,” Montgomery said, and nodded to the bos’n, who in turn began to relay orders, both on the bridge and through the speaking-tubes. The Endeavor’s searchlights focused on the tower and two men in flight suits appeared, carrying the tethers down to the metal lattice in question. The ship came to a halt, far more gently than the last time. The deck swayed and shuddered for a moment, and that was it.

“So what do you need here, ‘side from the money?” Montgomery asked, looking out over the dome.

“As I said, the machinery still works. One of the mechanisms will proof the Endeavor against some of the places we must go in the East.” Jonathan knew that modifying a ship with nonhuman technologies was one of the sticking points for either captain or inquisitor, which was why he hadn’t mentioned it until that moment. Now that they had come so far, there was really no choice.

“And what exactly are you planning to do to my ship?” Montgomery said after a long, thoughtful silence. He certainly had no enthusiasm for the idea, but he hadn’t exploded either, which was better than most.

“There is a chamber, which takes some doing to open up, but it is large enough to fit an airship and will bathe it in a protective liquid radiance.” Jonathan gestured around the bridge with his cane, taking in the Endeavor’s dimensions. “The exact secrets are lost to time, but once completed the hull and envelope – and any equipment left within the chamber – will be proof against much of the unnatural weather we will be facing.” He held up a warning finger. “I would not advise any living person be aboard when this is done, so we will have to establish a temporary camp at least.”

Montgomery growled deep in his throat, looking out at the desiccated city. He sounded like an animal grumbling about having to leave its den, but didn’t actually argue. Instead he turned to the bos’n with a frown.

“Have the men check the outpost equipment. Prepare for time on the surface.”

“Aye, Captain,” the bos’n said. Seeing that all was well in hand, Jonathan left the bridge to prepare himself to disembark, only to find Eleanor lounging against the wall at the top of the staircase.

“So I hear there’s gold down there,” Eleanor said, eyes shining. “Is this where you picked up that fortune of yours?”

“That would be telling,” Jonathan demurred. “But it is quite obvious the former inhabitants had a different attitude toward the stuff than we do. Though my warning applies to you as well. The machines of those who built Angkor Leng are not to be treated lightly.”

“Spoilsport,” Eleanor said, but without any real force behind it. “Strange, though. What did they do with it, build walls from it or something?”

“Or something,” Jonathan replied. “They built devices with it. I am not certain how or why, but most of it is still functional so I cannot impugn their craft. Obviously, removing the metal destroys the machine — there are entire sections of the city that are inaccessible thanks to greed.”

“I can restrain myself, I suppose,” Eleanor said, and sauntered back to her cabin. Jonathan continued on his way, retrieving the books with translation notes. While he had been through the process before, he did not wish to trust the Endeavor’s integrity solely to his memory.

Eleanor joined him on the bottom deck as the men finished rigging the descent line, hot air blowing through the open hatches. He’d forgotten what Angkor Leng was like; an oven outside for no discernable reason, yet inside was just slightly too cool to be comfortable. The atmosphere was like a physical blow as Jonathan readied himself to descend into Angkor Leng, the city of fever and gold.

Looted down to its foundations, a person could buy Beacon with the proceeds. Yet anyone who tried would not live to tell the tale, as the machines were unpredictable, deadly, and important. Without them, that which was under the city would pour forth, and any would-be looter would not survive. Perhaps Jonathan should have revealed that as well, as now they had seen the doom under Tor Ilek he had some idea of what might be lurking there. Yet he didn’t, for if there was one Society man aboard, there might be another, and he didn’t want to give them ideas.

Let the men indulge their greed just a little, and greater trouble would pass them by.