King of Thorns (The Broken Empire 2)

“I can give you three questions.”

“Like a genie,” I said.

“Yes, but they give wishes. Two left.”

“That was an observation, not a question!” I cried.

I chewed my lip. “Do you swear to give full and honest answers?”

“No. Two left.”

Dammit. “Tell me about guns,” I said.

“No. One left.”

“Point me at the single most useful and portable piece of Builder-magic in this chamber,” I said.

Fexler shrugged and then pointed to what looked to be one of the valves on the blackened machine. I moved to examine it. Not a valve, something else. A ring set in a depression.

“It’s hardly portable.”

“Twist it,” he said.

I cleaned the area with my sleeve. A silver ring about three inches across topped a stubby cylindrical projection. Shallow grooves around the edge offered some traction. I twisted it. It proved extremely stiff but with the bones in my hand creaking I managed to turn the ring.

Nothing happened.

I twisted again. Easier this time. Again. I spun it several times and the ring came loose in my hand.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Look through it,” Fexler suggested.

I held it to my eye. Nothing for a second, then an image over-wrote my vision, a blue circle swirled with white patterns, intricate, infinitely detailed. For some reason it put me in mind of Alaric’s snow-globe. “It’s wonderful,” I said. “What is it?”

“Your whole world. Seen from a little over twenty thousand miles above the ground.”

“That’s a ways to fall. What are all the white swirls?”

“Weather formations.”

“Weather?” It seemed incredible that I might be seeing clouds from above rather than below, and over such reaches that their whole cycle and design lay revealed. “Weather from when? From your day?”

“From today. From now.”

“This isn’t just a painting?”

“You’re seeing the world as it happens. Your world,” Fexler said.

I shifted my grip on the ring and I plunged, or felt that I did, racing down and to the left, like an eagle diving. A small curl at the end of one vast cloud swirl now filled my vision and I could see land far below, a sparkling thread wove across the greens and browns. I stumbled but managed to keep my feet.

“I can see a river!” An old instinct bit in. Suspicion drew the ring and its visions from my eye. “Why?”

“Why?” he asked.

I spun the ring between finger and thumb. “Beware of ghosts bearing gifts, they say.”

“You’ll find that’s Greeks, but the principle is sound.” Fexler frowned. “You’re carrying something that interests me. And as it turns out you’re more than you seem. It’s not every day a battleground walks down my stairs.”

“Battleground?”

“You’re a nexus for two opposing forms of energy, young man—one dark, one light. I have technical terms for them, but dark and light serve well enough. Given a little more time they’ll tear you apart. Quite literally. It’s an exponential process, the end will be sudden and ‘violent.’”

“And you know this because?” My gaze returned to the ring.

“A lesson in life, Jorg. Whatever you look into can look back into you. The ring has scanned your brain in quite minute detail.”

My jaw clenched at that. The idea of being measured, being classified, did not appeal. “But that’s something unexpected you discovered, not what you were looking for?”

“You know what I was looking for.” Fexler smiled. “Perhaps you’d be good enough to set the ring to it for me?”

I pulled out my little box of memories. Today it seemed to tremble in my hand. The view-ring clunked against it as if both were lodestones drawn by mutual attraction. For a moment Fexler’s image pulsed more brightly.

“Interesting,” he said. “Crude but clever. Remarkable even.”

Box and ring fell apart—done with each other. Fexler fixed me with an intense stare.

“I can help you, boy. Fire and death have their hooks deep in you. Call it magic. It isn’t but this will go easier if we say it is. Your wounds anchor the enchantments, both of them trying to pull you into the domains from which they spring. Alone either one would draw you down in time, make something different of you, something no longer human. You understand me?”

I nodded. Ferrakind and the Dead King waited for me in separate hells.

Fexler’s gaze settled on the box, clenched tight in my hand. “All that saves you is that these forces are in opposition. Soon enough, though, that opposition will rip you open.”

He waited for me to speak, to beg or entreat his aid. I held my tongue and watched him.

“I can help,” he said.

“How?”

He flashed a nervous grin. “It’s done. I’ve bound both forces through that interesting little box of yours. It’s far stronger than you are. It may hold indefinitely. And while it holds the process should be halted; neither power should be able to get a better grip on you or able to pull you any further into their domain.”

“And what is it you want for this…gift?” I asked.

Fexler fended the question off with an irritable wave. “Just remember this, Jorg of Ancrath. Do not open that box. Open it and my work is undone. Open it and you’re finished.”

The box glinted as I turned it in my hand. “Pandora had one of these.”

I looked up for Fexler to share the joke, but he had gone. Several silent minutes passed, alone in the cellar, weighing box and ring in my hands. I had tickled far more than three answers from the ghost, but had a thousand more questions than when I started.

“Come back.” I sounded foolish.

The ghost did not return.

I put the ring in my pocket. Interesting or not it seemed odd that the grouch had favoured me above the others that visited him. Uncle Robert never mentioned a gift of any kind, nor any really meaningful answers to questions. Fexler wanted something from me. Something personal. That last nervous grin of his said it. He might be dead a thousand years, might be a Builder, or just the story of a Builder in a machine of cogs and magic, but before all that he was a man, and I knew men. He wanted something—something he couldn’t take but that he thought I could give.

I wondered, despite his mocking, if death held an allure for the ghost too. We aren’t meant to live forever, nor dwell in solitude. A life without change is no life. The spirit beneath Mount Honas agreed with me. Maybe the only way Fexler Brews had to tell me so was to offer me his gift. And to hope that I would help him. He wanted something, that much was sure. Everyone wants something.

I would have to think on it. The machine made Fexler. Grandfather would not thank me for destroying his source of fresh water, and neither would the men who would have to pump the fountains thereafter. Gone or not though, Fexler Brews and I were not finished with each other.

I spoke with my uncle on the night of that visit to Fexler’s cellar. We sat in the observatory tower with an earthenware jug of wine that looked old enough to have been excavated from a pharaoh’s tomb, and two silver goblets chased with rearing horses. A cool wind sighed through the arches and a bright dust of stars covered the black sky.