Page 4 of The Grip of Death
“Very rude,” I said. “But, uh, you’re right. We haven’t really come up with a name for it. I guess it feels weird because it was Mom and Dad’s prototype and they didn’t really have anythingfancy to call it. We did find the words ‘arcane engine’ scrawled in Mom’s handwriting somewhere in the notes, though. It’s a good enough working name, I think.”
“An arcane engine,” Niko echoed. “Pretty neat. Almost as if it’s meant to power something else.”
“That’s what we’re hoping to figure out. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll be able to scale up the design. We’ll see how far this baby can take us.”
I rapped the crystal battery with my knuckles, then did a double take when it produced a disproportionately loud and hollow sound. Preston chuckled and pointed past my head. I turned to find the source of the noise. Master Vikhyat was punching one of the guild buildings.
“What in the — wow. Look at him go.” I squinted to keep the sun out of my eyes. “What is he doing, exactly?”
“Testing the structural integrity of the outer walls, I imagine.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when Master Lobelia all but materialized from one of the nearby buildings. She’d somehow camouflaged herself to blend in with the colorful carpets of flowers. She was an alraune — a sentient hybrid of plant and human — and apparently I still had so much to learn about her kind.
“Have you been hiding over there the whole time?”
She shrugged. “Not on purpose, I assure you. Now that the Halls of Making are absolutely covered in flora, I suppose it makes it easy for someone like me to — well, to forget myself. To lose myself among the flowers. You should try it some time, Jackson.”
I furrowed my brow at her, wondering if she was serious, then experiencing a momentary stab of existential terror. What if Ididlose myself among the flowers? Not to be too paranoid about it all, but it would take a while for all thoughts of theChrysanthemysts to leave my brain. If those crystalline flowers taught me one thing, it was to be very cautious about pretty things.
Another noise banged throughout the Halls of Making. I frowned at Master Vikhyat, watching as his muscles knotted and bulged with every strike. I’d tell him to stop harassing my guild, but also knew that he was perfectly capable of turning my face into steak tartare with a single punch. I turned to Lobelia for an explanation, but she spoke first.
“Not to worry, Jackson. Vikhyat and I discussed this at length. I was most curious about the durability of these structures now that they’re fully grown and treated with ironmist. I do apologize, but it’s something of a matter of pride for me, too. I’d be so embarrassed if Lobelia’s ladder turned out to be no better for construction than some flimsy sheets of plywood.”
She had a point. That was the name of the plant that had created all the buildings, explaining their twisting, tendril-like shapes. Ironmist itself was an alchemical substance designed to further reinforce natural materials, allowing for some truly unique creations. Armor out of bark, for instance, or razor-sharp knives out of leaves and petals.
“It looks like everything is sturdy enough, at least.” I flinched when Vikhyat struck the same wall with a final resounding bang, which rewarded him with a colorful shower of petals. He strode over to us still sputtering and plucking them out of his beard and hair. Pity. I thought it was a good look for him.
“Strong enough,” Vikhyat declared, rotating his arm at the shoulder, muscles gliding under his glistening skin.
“Wonderful,” Lobelia said. “Thank you, Master Vikhyat. I think it’s safe to say that these structures would at least be insulated from natural disasters, rare as those may be in the Black Market.”
He nodded, then flashed a grin in my direction. “I would worry less about the outside of these buildings, Master Pryde. It might be time to focus your attention on filling the inside of them instead.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Huh? But we’ve pretty much furnished everything. Haven’t we?”
Niko smacked himself in the forehead. Preston spoke for them both.
“Jack, I think Master Vikhyat is talking about filling the Halls of Making with people again. You know, people like us. Artificers.”
“Ohhh.” I blinked into the distance. Some guild master I was shaping up to be. “I mean, we haven’t really planned for that, apart from advertising in the local paper. And Xander and I have talked about doing some tours at the three main academies. You know, hop on over to Grayhaven, then the Wispwood, then the Iron College, see if we can’t drum up some interest for career day.”
“Yes, yes,” Vikhyat said patiently. “All well and good, young Master Jackson. But have you considered turning to the old guard? The originals. Those who once belonged to the Halls of Making.”
I gasped. How long had it been since the original artificers had gone their separate ways, the survivors scattered by the explosion? Lobelia took my hand in hers, her palm and fingers as soft and warm as her smile.
“You’ve built a new home for the artificers, Master Jackson. Isn’t it time to welcome them back?”
3
Xander was moresurprised than anyone by the sight of me, Preston, and Niko rushing right back to the house not an hour after I’d gone. We should have thought of it a long time ago. If Whitby could call up old schematics left behind by my parents, then surely he had access to other records, too.
Important information, such as the whereabouts of the members of the old guild!
Lore was the bigger surprise, dropping everything in the kitchen to help out by interfacing with Whitby. We filled the living room in two pockets, Team Wedding Prep and Team Halls of Making, each focused on our respective tasks. Well, to be fair, my team was mostly focused on Lore and Whitby scouring their memory banks for the right data.
And when they found it? Hoo, boy. Preston and I spent hours poring over all the information, all our reading slowed down by constant interjections about “Hey, remember this guy?” and “Whoa, I wonder where she is today?” Good thing we had Niko around to keep us on the straight and narrow.
We must have spent solid chunks of the next two days just picking through the printouts that the AIs provided for us. As exciting as it all was, though, one very stern reminder served totemper our enthusiasm. A lot of these names — a hell of a lot of them, in fact — were people who had already perished in the initial blast.
