Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [153]
Herian laughed. ‘How does it feel to hold something that’s in two places at once?’
Granger heaved the shield aside and the weight abruptly disappeared. The wolves and their bleak forest remained inside the glass.
Electrical fluids were now streaming between the crystal and the mouths of the conduits, forming a blazing net that filled the centre of the chamber. The air smelled of storms. As Granger watched, the energy began to coalesce in front of the crystal, forming a discernible shape. It seemed to him that he could see the outline of a female figure in that chaos – white and luminous with lightning for hair.
‘She’s reversing entropy,’ Herian said. ‘Recreating herself in this place.’ He scrambled to his feet and laughed again. ‘You needn’t bother arming yourself – flesh, steel, bullets, it’s all just matter to her.’
The woman amidst the lightning was becoming more solid with each passing moment as energy hardened and took the shape of flesh and bone and armour. Her mirrored plate had been crafted to resemble the facets of a crystal and shone with the brilliance of a thousand gem lanterns. She wore a glass shield strapped to her back, and carried a whip that sparkled with energy. Her long hair blazed and snapped, the electric fluids arcing in every direction. As the energy dissipated around her, Granger saw that her face was old and grey and haggard. For an instant he thought that she was weeping, but then he realized the truth. Those weren’t tears he saw, but brine leaking from the corners of her eyes and trickling out of her open mouth. She looked and smelled like one of the Drowned.
‘Those tears will burn,’ Herian said. ‘But I see you’ve had some experience of that already.’ He was sitting on a nearby mound of trove with his chin resting on his fist. ‘You look like a man who’s already had a taste of the world to come.’
Granger tore his eyes from the woman. Frantically, he eyed the trove around him. Swords, shields, pistols, armour. He didn’t know what any of it did. He reached for another sword, but then stopped when Herian began to snigger. This was Unmer weaponry. Most of it would be beyond him. He spied the kitbag he’d brought from the deadship. He’d packed it with tools he’d found aboard. But they were Unmer too. He snatched it up anyway and threw it at the entropath in wild desperation.
She cracked her whip. The kitbag fell in two pieces, spilling its contents onto the floor.
Shit.
He glanced back at the conduits leading into the chamber. Green fires now burned deep inside them with such savagery that each opening looked like the mouth to a strange chemical furnace. Streamers of lightning flowed from every one of them, feeding the crystal which fed the manifestation before him. He wheeled round and fixed his gaze upon the Unmer chariot lying at a shallow angle upon a heap of trove. Blue and pink electrical auras fluttered across its egg-shaped hull.
Granger bolted across the room and, chased by the sound of Herian’s laughter, ducked inside the open hatch of the flying machine. The floor sloped sharply down towards the stern. Dozens of switches, dials, rollers and levers occupied a console that swept across the bow of the vessel, each marked by Unmer glyphs and numbers of indeterminable meaning. Several panels beneath the console had been removed, leaving the internal mechanics exposed. Lights of all colours flickered within that mess of wires. Above the console, three glass panels hinged like winged dresser mirrors offered views of the chamber beyond. Through these Granger watched the entropath approach. Brine continued to pour from her mouth and