Page 62 of Chained Knight

The long low building on the left held a rosy mirroring of flame inside its doorways and reverberated with the ghost of hideous hammering. The mental image of a hellish assembly line, robots slammed together piece by piece until bright horned helms were lowered over shrieking metallic faces frozen inagony, was so clear and distinct she faltered, her shoulder pressing against the chained man’s armored arm.

Finally, as if compelled by the movement, he spoke. “Peace, my lady.” Just the same as always, and none of his armor-spikes did more than gently scratch her mantle’s sleeve. The edge of his spicemusk scent held a hint of cleansing, purging flame. “Just a few more steps.”

And then what?But she couldn’t ask, not least because she was half afraid the answer would be far worse than any terrible, suspicious anticipation.

They passed through the largest archway, into the Keep proper. The wall-mirrors ran with lethargic, infected glow, cracks spreading from the chained man’s reflection; the ceiling was a mosaic and the floor dusky glass. No slivers popped free, the edifice holding together despite fierce vibration, and she wondered how long it would take this place to fall apart. What animals would poke through the dusty shards once it did, searching for shelter or a meal? Or would they avoid its corpse as they did its barren, glittering glory?

There were no birds here, no not-possums, none of the small sounds of woodland or urban wildlife. Not even rats would inhabit this dump, she thought, and another wave of great gripping shakes passed through her, as if she was crouched against a bathroom door while Mike kicked the other side.You better come out, Ari. You hear me? Come the fuck out, I wanna talk to you…

Endlessly reflected hallways and glass-clothed rooms flowered around them, creaking cracks accompanying each measured footfall. The light became low, brownish, and she sensed the eclipse was near its midpoint now.

A pair of huge doors, thick glass beveled and cut in strange whirling patterns, reared atop three wide, shallow steps of smoky bubble-streaked glazing. The chained man glanced downat her, his eyebrows slightly lifted, and Ari found she could decipher the look with no trouble at all, even through the rising threads of contagion clasping his face.

As if she knew him—or at least, part of her did. Fear evaporated, his presence suddenly a deep inalienable comfort.

He’s here. Nothing can hurt me.

Ridiculous. Utterly bonkers. And yet, she found she could believe.

His boot landed on the first step, and the doors shattered inward with a titanic jolt. Shrapnel whickered as it flew; Ari climbed the stairs at his side, for once certain no sharp edge could touch her.

A vast hall lay beyond, full of whispers and strange directionless sepia light. The clouded floor cracked in great spirals, fissures radiating from the chained man, and Ari’s eyelids fluttered. At the far end a strange cascading glitter winked back, its colorless shining too bright for gloom-adapted pupils. It hurt to look; she squeezed her eyes shut and leaned on the chained man’s arm. The Carcanet’s heat intensified, its heartbeat evening into a steady flow.

Step. Another step. A long chain of soft, relentless footfalls. Her slippers found nothing but level ground, and the armored arm under her hands was steady. He led her carefully, and when he stopped she did too, the darkness behind her lids still deep-soft and utterly comforting.

“Look at her,” the chained man said, and his voice was terrible. It boomed through the entire citadel, floated across the drawbridge, whistled past the small group huddled there,and caromed over the Mirrored City as the entire shining excrescence lay supine.

The hush afterward was vast and shadowy, full of dry rushing flame to match a hint of smoke in the chained man’s scent.

He spoke again. “Look at me.” Again the words roared, and mirrored towers shattered. Great shards and slivers plummeted, crashing on cobbled thoroughfares like the Spires’ eternal crumbling. Glazed walls heaved and buckled, and even the sun blinked for a moment as the chained man’s fury reached apogee.

Ari found she could open her eyes again. The headache-inducing glow at the far end of the hall had shrunk, and now she saw a half-familiar shape—the Bright King, slumped upon a giant, twisted throne of corrugated glass.

Her heart gave a wrenching, wringing leap.

The chained man spoke for the third time. “Look at us,” he said, softly. The words reverberated as the others had, and outside the glass castle the entire city shuddered, its remaining towers sway-cracking.

No. It can’t… no. Bile whipped the back of her throat, and Ari longed to scream.

Because sherecognizedhim.

Hunched in a suit of polished armor shaped very much in imitation of the chained man’s, his lips pulled back in a hateful grimace and his blue eyes rolling, Mike Hardison stiffened, and screamed.

37

KIND AS EVER

The cry wasone she knew intimately. Deep and grinding, it was the sound her husband produced when he was too angry for words, and the congested rage on his face was hatefully routine as well. Ari’s knees buckled. The metal under her palms softened, crumpling as well, and for a moment she thought she had, with hysterical strength, put a dent in blackened iron.

The Bright King surged from his throne, snatching up a long heavy blade resting against its trembling, splintering side. His armored boots were polished to shining; his spurs struck white sparks from the rivening floor. “NOOOOOOO,” he screamed as he flung himself toward her; she could only watch, the dry clicks of an empty revolver filling her head, a reek of gunpowder and blood in her nose, her bruised throat throbbing, and small blood vessels bursting in her eyes, glaring red petechiae she’d glimpsed in the Oldsmobile’s rearview mirror.

Little branching threads, red instead of black. Had the clear, clean pondwater soothed those wounds as well?

The chained man stepped forward, her hands falling from his arm. The shadows on his cheeks retreated, infection burnedto nothingness in a furnace of renewal. Iron cracked, clatter-clanging on quaking glass tiles. Underneath, he wore dusty black—linen shirt, velvet tunic, breeches like his forest knights, and functional dark leather boots like Keners’s. He stepped out of the chains and they fell, wriggling, their small hissing chimes lost in the tumult.

Yet the Bright King did not slow. Frozen, Ari watched death approach at a run, and the sound of shattering was the full-length mirror on the bedroom wall when Mike threw her against it, small slices on the back of her head clotting up swiftly while she drove from the house on Hardison Hill; the noise he now made was full of her husband’s last rattling exhalation as he thudded to the hardwood, his T-shirt full of bloody holes.

Clunk. The clamor stopped, sliced in half. The chained man—he wasn’t chained anymore—made a slight dismissive movement, both massive spiked gauntlets falling in spent petal-pieces.

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