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  Ama took her hand, squeezing almost painfully in her excitement. “I think I know why we’re here.”

  ***

  Luthiya gripped the ragged edge of the rock, her heart beating thrice as fast as it should’ve been. A wide river of magma coursed fifteen meters below them, and within it—or were they above it?—floated a dozen or so humanoid shapes. They were golden and ethereal, like wisps of flame, though there was nothing to burn. In another place and time, they might’ve been beautiful, but Luthiya couldn’t see past the fire. Fire meant destruction. Death. The Tabaht.

  “What are they?” she breathed. And why is Ama excited about these…things?

  “Fire wights,” Ama said.

  “Wights?!” Luthiya hugged herself tightly, remembering old Shue ghost stories in which the dead returned from Abaddon to feed on the living.

  Ama touched Luthiya’s arm. “Hush, child. I’m not ready for them to know we’re here. Fire wights is a misnomer, based on how the Ossiphagans saw them. These creatures are very much alive.”

  “Which brings us back to the question,” Luthiya said, more quietly. “What are they?”

  Ama sighed, as though Luthiya should already know. “Old, of course. Probably not of this world at all. They’re extremely intelligent, if somewhat difficult to communicate with. I wonder if the thermebus would be useful in…”

  Ama continued talking to herself, and Luthiya ground her teeth. The nano often did this: babbling to herself as though Luthiya weren’t there or couldn’t understand what she was saying. Normally, Luthiya would let her run on—she’d learned a lot of useful things that way—but there were more important things right now. “Are they dangerous, Ama?”

  “What?” Ama looked at her and blinked, obviously having forgotten Luthiya was there. “Oh, no, child. They are not fire any more than they are undead. They aren’t even hot, though they can become so. They communicate through a form of temperature variation. One could spend another three or four lifetimes trying to under—”

  “Ama,” Luthiya said as politely as she could behind clamped teeth. “Why are they exciting?”

  Her face lit up as she said, “I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something important about this place, Thiya. I feel it, and it has something to do with the wights.” There was a spark in her eyes Luthiya had never seen before. Joy…but scarier. “I think we can help them.”

  “Help them?” The nano was always strange, but this was beyond that. It was one thing to spend hours staring at some metal orb that hung by its own power, but Ama seemed unusually detached from reality at the moment. “We’re having enough trouble helping our—”

  “Look!”

  Ama pointed as some of the wights came together in a circle. Flamelike coils stretched forward from their bodies. Arms, Luthiya thought. The wights plunged their arms into the magma, then the circle began to spin. The magma spun with them, as though the wights were stirring it.

  As Luthiya watched, the magma changed color from red, to orange, to gold. The wights rose into the air and a tower of golden magma rose out of the river with them. She gasped. How is that even possible?

  The magma continued to rise. Some of the wights remained at the base, coaxing more magma into the tower, while others guided it toward the cavernous ceiling. Finally they reached the roof where a smaller circle of wights had formed and was molding the magma into the ceiling itself.

  Luthiya wasn’t sure when it changed, but the magma became a shimmering black, a pillar of twisted glass that hadn’t been there before. “Like the chantry,” she said in awe.

  “And the bridges,” said Ama, smiling down at her. “Think what we could do with their help. We could rebuild this city.”

  “Why…” Luthiya shook her head, still in amazement at what the wights had created. “Why should we rebuild it?”

  “Isn’t that what you want? A people without a home. What if they could build you one?”

  Luthiya watched as the wights built more from the magma: arches, honeycombed towers, a kind of crystal tree. They wove the obsidian together like vines and tendons. Where there had been an empty cavern, suddenly there was a webwork of bridges and barbicans. It was simultaneously awe–inspiring and mystifying.

  Why do they do it? If Ama hadn’t said they were intelligent, Luthiya would’ve assumed they were animals building a nest or a burrow.

  “Did I ever tell you why I came to your people?”

  Luthiya shook her head.

  “My body,” Ama said, “drew me to you.” She ran one hand through her hair, revealing part of a tattoo on her skull.

  Luthiya had seen it before, a kind of filigreed pentagon, partially covered by her hairline. It looked darker now than she remembered, though it was probably just the shadows of the cavern.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s impossible to explain in a way you’d understand.” The nano grimaced. “I am drawn to where there’s a…a need. I felt the Shue’s suffering from as far away as M’ra Jolios. I still feel your suffering, though it has lessened since we arrived here.”

  “Here.” Luthiya huffed. “We’d suffer a lot less if you’d brought us someplace cheerier.”

  Ama gave her a wan smile. “I was drawn here, too. I didn’t know why until now.”

  “The fire wights?” Luthiya looked down to the river again. The creatures had stopped building. They seemed to be wandering across the magma.

  “Exactly. They suffer somehow. I can feel it. But what if we could help them, and in so doing help ourselves?”

  “Really?”

  “Look how easily they float across the lava. They could catch food for you, search out places you can’t. Think of how much you could accomplish with their help. They may know secrets that could make this place the paradise it must have once been. Think, Thiya. You could have a home again.”

  A home. The ruins of Ossiphagan were hardly a home, and Luthiya wasn’t convinced they could make it one, even with the help of the wights. But there was hope in Ama’s words. That was something her people needed. It might even be what they needed to forget the Tabaht.

  “So how can we help them? What do they need?”

  “That is what we must find out.”

  As she spoke, Ama clasped her forearm and spread the fingers of her free hand. She rotated her hand as though she were opening a jar. A ring of blue flame appeared in the air. When the circle was complete, she thrust her hand through it.

  Luthiya’s eyes became huge. Ama’s hand had disappeared into nothing. When Ama yanked it out, she was holding a small creature covered in green fur.

  “What is that?” The critter turned its flat face to look at her. Luthiya covered a smile. “It’s cute.”

  “It’s an experiment.” Ama tossed the creature off the ledge.

  Luthiya gasped. The animal tumbled through the super–heated air toward the fire wights. Luthiya’s eyes welled up.

  Then, halfway down, four webbed wings spread out from the creature’s back and caught the air. It glided safely to one of the bridges the wights had created. Luthiya sighed in relief.

  She turned on Ama. “What did you do that for?”

  Ama shrugged. “I was curious. What would the wights do to something they’d never seen before?”

  “It could have died.” The creature was preening its fur now, a prehensile tail wrapped around an obsidian protrusion. Two or three of the wights turned toward it, but most ignored it.

  Ama made a sound like a verbal shrug. “It’ll die anyway. From starvation, if not the fumes.” She put a hand under her chin and sighed deeply. “We would’ve learned a lot more if they’d killed it.”

  Saddened, Luthiya tried not to look at the creature. She watched the wights instead. Most of them congregated in groups. They might have been communicating, but without human gestures it was hard to tell. Others drifted aimlessly. The creativity they had exhibited earlier was gone.

  What if they did suffer? Ma
ny of the Shue survivors had acted as they did—drifting, doing nothing—before Khapah had found tasks for them all. Some still acted that way.

  One of the wights turned toward the ledge where Luthiya and Ama were crouched. Within the flames were three black holes, like eye sockets. The others in its group turned, then, as well. Luthiya cringed. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the creatures were looking directly at her.

  Chapter 3

  As Luthiya approached to the bone tower, a blast pounded through the tunnel. She covered her ears, but it didn’t stop the feeling that her skull was being shaken apart. Something had exploded in the Marrow Chamber. She ran to see what had happened.

  Another shockwave thumped through the hall when she arrived, almost knocking her to the ground. She found her friend Nai among the other Shue cringing at one end of the chamber. “What’s going on?” she shouted.

  “I don’t know,” Nai yelled back. “Something in the relic pile just…”

  All sound in the room ceased, and Nai’s mouth slowed down mid–sentence. Then the room pounded again violently. On the opposite side of the room a handful of oddities flew out in all directions, hung in the air for two seconds, and were then yanked back to their original places by an unseen force.

  In the same way, time seemed to snap back to normal. “…started going off,” Nai finished.

  The relic pile was where the Shue kept oddities they found in the ruins, objects with no apparent use. Most of the relics were inert or useless—a spongy black ball, or a cube of pure light—but sometimes pieces of old tech had bad reactions to each other.

  “Where’s Khapah?” Luthiya said.

  Nai shook her head and shrugged. She froze in the middle of the movement. The air thundered again, pressing against Luthiya’s skull. Luthiya ducked involuntarily, but it wasn’t until the explosion subsided that she could move at normal speed.

  The pulses didn’t seem to be doing any actual damage, but Luthiya’s heart hammered at her chest. “I’m going over there.”

  She didn’t wait for Nai’s response. Her friend would probably just try to stop her. Luthiya sprinted to the relic pile and began digging.

  The next shockwave hammered through Luthiya’s entire body. She shrieked and fell on her back—slowly at first, then quickly as time returned to normal. The oddities flew outward again. While they were suspended in the air, she saw it: near the back of the pile was the synthsteel rod she’d given Khapah that morning, pulsing with an orange light.

  The other relics snapped back to the ground. Luthiya leapt up and snatched the rod. She thought she’d have to deactivate it or something, but as soon as she removed it from the pile, it stopped glowing. She waited. No more pulses came.

  “That’s a hell of a strangement.” Nai’s voice sounded tinny and distant to Luthiya’s ringing ears. “Why do you think it did that?”

  “Gods only know.” Luthiya was probably shouting, but Nai didn’t seem to notice. “Khapah should know better than to keep all this junk together. Where is he?”

  “Haven’t seen him. He’s probably on lookout.”

  Right. He always gave himself the jobs no one wanted. If he wanted to lead, he said, he had to serve the Shue as well.

  “Put this with the weapons.” She handed the rod to Nai. “Away from any numenera ones, yes? I need to find some food.”

  Nai smirked. “You’re going to see him, aren’t you?”

  Normally she would’ve reacted to the accusation, but the explosions and the wights had her rattled. “I just…have to bring him some news.”

  ***

  Luthiya brought food and water to the cliffs atop the western pass—the Charred Pass, they called it. It was a sheer ravine, blackened by smoke and ash. Of course, everything in Ossiphagan was blackened by smoke and ash, but the Charred Pass was darker than most.

  Sure enough, Khapah was on lookout duty with Tsio. Luthiya felt a twinge of guilt for bringing the food. She brought meals for lookouts all the time, so often that most had come to expect it, but seeing Khapah made it feel almost manipulative. Like a bribe to make him see things her way.

  Tsio noticed her first. He was younger than Khapah by a couple of years, but taller by a head and with an actual beard. “Makoeh! Am I glad to see you.” He stared at the basket and licked his lips.

  Luthiya managed a smile. “Why do you waste your time on this pass, boys? The Tabaht are that way.” She pointed east, past the bone towers to where the black clouds kissed the horizon.

  “I tried that,” Tsio said. “Khapah says it hurts being so thorough.”

  Khapah grunted. “I said it doesn’t hurt to be thorough. If someone comes down this pass, I want to know about it.”

  Tsio crossed his thick arms. “And who would ever come here?”

  “The point is we don’t know what’s out there.” Khapah pointed beyond the Charred Pass. “There could be kingdoms a hundred times worse than the Tabaht.”

  Or there might be a place we could call home, Luthiya thought. “I brought you some salamanders.”

  She set the basket a small distance away. Tsio left his post and attacked the food immediately. Khapah took one salamander and returned to the lookout perch, as Luthiya had known he would.

  She followed him there. “Someone left that synthsteel rod in the relic pile.”

  He sneered. “Jio. I told him to put it in the armory. Why? Did something happen?”

  She shook her head. “Nobody got hurt.” He didn’t need to hear the whole story. Anyway, that wasn’t why she came here. “Ama’s found something.”

  She said it so softly that she had to repeat herself before Khapah heard her.

  “That’s great! What is it?”

  “Not an artifact. There are creatures living in the tunnels.”

  His smile fled. “Dangerous?”

  “Ama doesn’t think so. She says they need help.” Luthiya described the creatures, what they could do, and how they seemed so aimless. “She said the fire wights can—”

  Tsio jerked upright. A salamander leg dropped from his lips. “Wights?”

  Luthiya winced. I guess I’m louder than I think. “They’re not actually wights,” she told Tsio. “Ama says they aren’t even made of fire. They just look it.”

  Tsio grunted. “That’s a strangement. So why should we help them?”

  “She thinks they can help us find food or search the city. And they can do something with the lava, shape it into whatever they want. We could have them build bridges or walls.” Luthiya swallowed. “Maybe even make this city a home.”

  Tsio snorted at that, but he didn’t say anything.

  Khapah, however, was pensive. “Why is Ama interested in these wights? What does she get out of it?”

  “She says she’s drawn to them, like she was drawn to us. She wants to help.”

  Khapah rubbed one ear, thinking.

  “Do you trust Ama?” Tsio asked him.

  “With the numenera, I do,” Khapah said. “If the wights are intelligent, maybe they can help us search the ruins. Like a trade agreement.”

  Tsio raised an eyebrow. “Trade for what?”

  “Ama said that’s what we need to find out,” Luthiya said.

  “Good.” Khapah nodded. “We’ll do that. Ha! If this works, maybe we could be home by year’s end.”

  “Home?” Luthiya furrowed her brow. “But Ama said—”

  Khapah put a hand on hers. Usually that would send tingles along her skin, but now it felt cold. “Makoeh, I know how you feel about returning to Shuenha. No doubt Ama believes most of us feel that way. She speaks mostly to you, yes?”

  Luthiya thinned her lips, wondering if that were true.

  “This is not our home. It never will be. If anything, it belongs to these fire creatures. But if we can find some common ground with them, maybe they can give us the edge we need to take back Shuenha.”

  Tsio’s laughter rumbled in his chest. “Think what the Tabaht would do if we brought wights back with us.” />
  “Maybe.” Khapah grinned. “Maybe.”

  “No!” Luthiya pulled her hand out from under Khapah’s. “What does killing do but make more killing? We need to heal. We need to move on.”

  “And how can we heal without justice? The Tabaht deserve death—worse!—for what they did to us. We will find what the fire wights need, and hopefully they can find the things we need to take back our home.”

  “Khapah,” Luthiya said. “You know I trust you. And I—I care about you, I mean all of us.” She made fists in the ash, cursing her weakness. “But I can’t— I don’t think this is what Ama wants.”

  “If Ama is drawn to help us, as you say, then she will surely help us in this.”

  Luthiya grimaced. Ama probably would help them, just as Luthiya always did. But that wasn’t the point. It was too hard for Luthiya to say what she really felt. The Shue were going from Abaddon’s Gate to the Abyss; Khapah was guiding them.

  And Luthiya was just helping them along.

  ***

  Days later, she was still “just helping.” She and Nai returned from their shift watching the wights. Her feet dragged; she’d lost the desire to even pick them up off the ground. It wasn’t just the wights. It was her. She knew what the Shue needed, but she spent all her time doing what Khapah wanted.

  Because that was what she needed.

  Khapah had someone watching the wights all the time now—from a distance, of course. So far they’d learned nothing. The wights roamed without purpose: occasional spurts of miraculous creation, then nothing at all. The only sign they were even aware of the Shue was how they watched Luthiya. Never the others; always her. Chills scuttled across her skin just thinking of it.

  Luthiya and Nai arrived at the Marrow Chamber. Clean water seeped out of the hot spring—a crack Ama had made in the ground shortly after they’d arrived—creating a pool in the center of the chamber. A massive archway had been carved out of the bone tower on one side, letting in the glow from the lavafalls. The force wall shimmered across the opening, its faint blue light keeping out most of the heat.