Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [163]
‘The sorcerer had constructed a suit to supply him with all the air and food and water he’d ever need, and to keep him warm during his journey across the freezing wastes. The slave didn’t have a suit, of course, and died quickly, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t actually have to be alive to cast his reflection. The sorcerer set one mirror adrift in the void, and then he took the slave’s body and the other mirror away with him deep into the unknown.’ Herian shrugged. ‘And nobody ever saw him or heard from him again.’
Granger grunted. ‘Is there a point to all this?’
‘The point is,’ Herian said, ‘don’t get involved with things you don’t understand. The artefacts you call trove were designed to study different facets of the cosmos around us. You are no different from the slave. You cannot wield any these weapons safely unless you understand the forces at work.’
‘So teach me.’
Herian shook his head. ‘It took me years to learn. It would take you a lifetime.’
Granger got up and walked over. He placed the barrel of his pistol against the old man’s head. ‘This gun turns things to ash,’ he said.
Herian snorted. ‘Ash? It increases entropy.’
Granger’s finger tightened on the trigger. ‘I don’t care what you call it,’ he said. ‘It’ll hurt just the same.’
‘You have no idea what you’re getting into.’
Granger shot him in the foot.
Herian howled as half his toes vaporized in a puff of grey-coloured ash. He clamped his hands across the stump, but there was no blood at all. His crown fell off, and he began to shudder and wail.
‘I think I just increased some entropy there,’ Granger said.
‘You bastard.’
Granger grabbed the old man’s neck and lifted his face so he could look into those terrified eyes. ‘Tell me how these weapons work,’ he said. ‘All of them.’
Herian just stared at him with utter contempt.
Granger raised the pistol again.
‘All right,’ Herian said. He let out a growl of pain and frustration. ‘There are two main schools of Unmer sorcery: Entropic and Brutalist. Brutalist sorcery concerns the movement of energy. Gem lanterns, wave cannons, air stones, perception devices, they’re all made using those principles. Entropic sorcery focuses on matter, its destruction and creation. It’s how trove is made.’
‘How do I use the Replicating Sword?’
‘I’ll come to that!’ Herian cried. ‘Just give me a moment. Give me a moment!’
Granger had no means to judge the passage of time inside that gloomy tower. He sat and listened for hours as the old man talked about the principles behind many of the artefacts around them. Most of it he didn’t understand, but he learned enough to be both frightened and respectful of these things the Unmer had made. Some objects, it seemed, had no discernible purpose other than to test a theory about the cosmos, while others had been deliberately crafted to torture and kill. The deadliest weapons were not always the ones that looked dangerous. Seemingly innocuous objects worked horrors Granger could scarcely comprehend. There were pins that turned flesh to gemstones and screaming rings that, once worn, could never be removed. In one corner Herian unearthed a crib once used to smother human children. Devices for exchanging perceptions abounded, and Granger wondered if he might use one of them to communicate with Ianthe. But he was afraid to try anything in the old man’s presence that might affect his own mind in ways he couldn’t predict.
It must have been late into the night when Herian finally slumped to the ground and begged Granger to let him rest. Granger left him alone and took the chariot back out into the frozen wilderness to find a place where he himself might sleep safely.
The sun was rising over the Mare Verdant, and the waters lay under a veil of green vapour. Not a breath of wind disturbed the snow. Granger flew the chariot leagues into the north until he could no longer see the transmitting station tower. Still the ice stretched on forever. The curve of the world bowed before him under ink blue skies.
There he slept, wrapped in his fur