Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [152]
Granger shook him. ‘You invited them here?’
‘Not me,’ Herian said. ‘I’m just an operator.’
At the old man’s words, someone seized Granger from behind. A strong arm gripped his neck, dragging him backwards. Granger reacted at once, driving his elbow into the unseen opponent’s ribs.
Something struck him hard in the gut, punching the air from him. The blow had come from nowhere. Granger hadn’t even seen whatever had hit him, but he felt his opponent’s grip slacken. He wrestled free, spun round . . .
. . . and found himself facing one of the simulacrums.
This copy was no longer mimicking him. It was bent over, clutching its ribs. And, to Granger’s astonishment, so were all the others. At least a dozen copies stood around him, every one of them doubled over in pain.
Had Granger struck himself, along with all the others? He raised the sword, but none of the simulacrums copied his gesture. Many of them had already recovered. They were edging closer from all directions at once. For a moment, Granger stood there, uncertain. Then he dropped the sword.
The simulacrums vanished.
Herian laughed. ‘If you don’t make decisions for your own swordsmen,’ he said, ‘then there are always others who’ll do it for you.’ He indicated the scrap pile. ‘Please, help yourself to something else. Plenty more weapons to choose from.’
Granger stooped to grab a different sword but hesitated. He glanced at Herian.
Herian shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t be my choice.’
Granger walked up to him and punched him in the face.
The old man fell back into a pile of metal. His crown fell off, revealing the leucotomy scar on his forehead. He spat blood, then gave Granger a red grin. ‘A hundred years ago I’d have made you suffer for that,’ he said. ‘Old age has mellowed me.’ He reached over into a heap of trove and grabbed a heavy flintlock pistol with a barrel big enough to ram a fist inside. He swung it round to bear on Granger.
Granger forced his boot down on Herian’s arm, pinning the weapon. He crouched over the old man and slugged him again, breaking his jaw. Herian howled. He managed to squeeze the trigger and the pistol gave a soft hiss, like an exhalation. A haze passed through the air, scattering the trove beyond the weapon’s barrel in all directions. The flying scrap turned to dust even as Granger watched. He slammed Herian’s wrist down, again and again, until the old man dropped the pistol. Then he kicked the damn thing away. He punched Herian’s face a second time, and then a third.
Herian sputtered and coughed, but then he grinned once more. ‘Beating me doesn’t even scratch the cosmos, you know?’ he said. ‘The wings of a fly make as much damage. Look around you, man.’
The crystal was blazing now, filling the whole room with the radiance of that alien sky trapped inside. And something equally strange was happening within the mouths of the conduits. Green light flickered within each of those portals, accompanied by a furious crackling sound and a deeper, more regular mechanical shunting. Was this whole tower a machine? A piece of trove itself? Many of the surrounding weapons began to glow and shiver, as weird fires danced across their metal surfaces. Granger could feel the energy crawling across his skin.
A bolt of lightning shot from one of the conduit doorways and struck the crystal, followed a heartbeat later by dozens more in rapid succession. The air fizzed with power. Herian shrieked with laughter, his bruised and swollen face contorted into a rictus of joy. His tongue lolled in his mouth; his eyes stared madly at the lightning. Granger released him and searched around frantically for something, anything with which to protect himself. He hauled out a heavy glass shield and raised it before him. Looking through it was like looking through an old, warped window, and yet the landscape he saw through that shield bore no resemblance to the chamber around him. Instead, he perceived a winter forest, the trees like charcoal dashes on a white page.
Herian growled, ‘Beware of wolves.’
Granger