The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [59]
The procession of helpers had reached the crest of a hilly rise within the forest. At Chel’s request they paused so that he could peer back down through the branches and the foliage. A figure stood there, just visible in the meagre radiance that filtered through, a tall Human figure, bearded. It was Vashutkin.
‘Seer Chel – we need to talk.’
Chel smiled humourlessly. Back in the ravine, standing in that torchlit circle, he had looked into Vashutkin’s eyes and even with the merest trace of his Seer talents he had seen what resided there, behind the cold stare. The dust of the Dreamless, the same pitiless thing that had possessed Gregory until the root-scholars of Glenkrylov had cleansed it from his blood.
Vashutkin had fallen silent. Off in the night, the sounds of fighting were receding as the Humans retreated back along the ravine. He turned to one of the Uvovo who supported him, a scholar of the Warrior clade.
‘Scholar, listen carefully – you must take the Human and me to separate vudrons, give each of us the Cup of Light, then close us up within.’
The scholar was taken aback. ‘Why do you ask for this, Seer? Why the husking ritual?’
‘Because our enemy has implanted machines of torture in both my body and the Human’s. If they are not made safe then both of us will die and all that we have learned will be lost.’ Chel paused, almost panting for breath, he was so weary. ‘I do not know for sure that the vudrons will heal us but we must try, and beseech Segrana to extend her grace and love.’
The scholar thought for a moment then nodded.
‘There are a good number of the Artificer Uvovo here, Seer. I am sure they will be eager to oversee the ritual.’ He paused, looked back down at the edge of the forest. ‘The Human is still there – is he likely to come in here after you?’
Chel shook his head.
‘No, he would not dare. It would mean his life.’
Then the Uvovo procession resumed its journey into the heart of the forest.
ROBERT
Strapped into the iron couch, Robert Horst could only watch and sweat as the Shyntanil torturer applied another dose of cellular converters to the middle segment of the forefinger of his right hand. The thumb and the forefinger tip were already cyborgised, dull metal shells enclosing impact-resistant materials with articulated joints and shielded microcabling. There was no feeling. The cyborg parts were utterly numb, although when the cellular converters were eating through his flesh, muscle and nerve, there was plenty to feel.
The couch was one of four in an otherwise empty rectangular room. The longer walls sloped inward and every surface was panelled with a burnished brassy metal in a hexagonal pattern. The lower areas of the walls were scratched and dented and every square inch of the floor had its share of scores and scrapes.
But the surroundings couldn’t divert him for long. Before him, the middle part of his forefinger was sheathed in a shimmering filmy substance through which he could see the skin dissolving. The pain reached him as a searing sensation, as if his finger was squeezed between hot irons, and as before the sickening worst of it only subsided when the nerves were dismantled. It only took moments for the rodlike core to coalesce, after which wire tracks, microcables, joints and cladding were laid down, ending with those armoured shells.
As the pain ebbed, other senses came back, like the itch of sweat trickling down his scalp. Trying to ignore it, Robert stared at his hand and wondered what the Construct would think of work like this. He cleared his throat.
‘So, is this what the Shyntanil go through to become as you are?’
The torturer looked up from the metamorphosis. He was as vaguely humanoid as the hulking, armoured soldiers who broke into his bridge and dragged Robert off his ship, except that from the waist down his body was mechanical, a rounded canister that sat on four wheels. The Shyntanil had a long, horselike head with hollow grey cheeks and blue eyes that gazed out from sunken sockets.
‘Very few are like myself, Horst,’ he said in a dry, leathery