Page 120 of City of Stone and Silence

At the end of the corridor, an arched doorway leads into the access point, the now-familiar jumble of conduits and metal extrusions. The air thrums with Eddica energy. Prime has decorated in his own particular way, fixing a ring of skulls all around the room. I give them a wary glance, but none of them seem inclined to attack me.

I wondered if Prime would confront me in the flesh, but there’s no sign of him. Maybe he didn’t think I’d get past his lizard-bird. I certainly don’t plan on giving him time to correct his mistake. I stride across the room to the dais and lay my hand on the conduits, feeling the tendrils of the Harbor system reach out to examine my essence.

access request received; home//caspar

result:

authorized/accep—cep—cep—

No. Prime’s voice—his true voice, the dead rasp—echoes through my mind. I will not allow it. I will not.

His ghost-image materializes in front of me, hovering over the dais. It looks nothing like his handsome puppet and considerably closer to one of the walking corpses, wrinkled and emaciated, ribs clearly visible in a shrunken chest. Gray hair sticks out in wisps from his mottled skull, and his eyes are black voids, the surrounding flesh cracked and seeping.

I am the Prime Eddicant, he says, his broken voice booming like thunder. This is my domain. Mine, and no other! Who are you to threaten me? You mayfly, you transient creature. You have no concept of true power! You know nothing.

He raises one withered claw.

You think you’ve won? The processes of this place are mine to command. Here, I can destroy you.

Gray energy surges behind him, lashing out at me from every direction. It feels like a sandstorm, a billion tiny grains abrading my flesh, except it drags its rasping breath across the surface of my mind. I feel myself scream, fall to my knees, desperately invoking my Melos armor, but the green energy doesn’t so much as shimmer. It’s helpless against this ghostly power.

My power. I bite down on the scream and squeeze my eyes shut, still able to see the maelstrom of gray light through closed eyelids. I am an Eddicant, just as much as he is.

You are nothing. I didn’t mean to broadcast the thought, but I can feel his mind pressed close around me, a nauseating embrace. If you had joined me, in a century you might have been worthwhile. Now you will die, and your spirit will amuse me until I tire of it.

I stand up, extending my hands. For a moment, the Eddica storm pauses, the currents closest to me shimmering uncertainly. Then they press outward, toward Prime’s illusory shape, slamming into the energy he throws against me.

You think this is a challenge? I hear his hacking laughter in my mind. I have studied this art for centuries, girl. What do you have?

Power bears down on me, a heavier weight than before, and I edge backward a step. He’s rotting right, I can feel it. I can draw power from the system, but all I can do with it is force it in his direction and hope. Meanwhile, I can feel him slipping around me, worming his tendrils through the conduits. Even as I barely manage to keep his assault from shredding my mind, he’s at work shutting down the energy I’m siphoning to protect myself. I try to strike back, tendrils of power fencing one another deep in the conduits, but this truly is his domain. He’s adept in a way no one else in the world can match.

No. I bear down, scraping for more power, drawing it out of my own flesh. I can feel heat building again, more and more, but it’s not enough. Rot rot rot. I’ve come this far, people have died, are still dying, and he’s going to rotting win—

Let me help you, Silvoa says, in my ear.

I feel her pressing against me, her spirit against my mind. I lower my defenses, just for an instant, and she slips inside my skin, my skull. Her hands close over mine, and she takes control of the fight, deep in the conduits. Prime’s tendrils pause for a moment, then slash and batter at mine with renewed vigor. But now he’s being driven back, step by step.

Impossible, he snarls.

Only for Isoka alone, Silvoa says.

No. Prime’s form shimmers, as though in a breeze. You’re dead.

Of course I am. You killed me, remember?

I destroyed your soul. I wiped out any remnant of you.

You tried, Silvoa said. But it’s been five years. You may have studied this place, Prime, but I was trapped in it. You don’t know its nooks and crannies like I do. Hiding enough of myself away to recover was the least of it.

I will purge you, he snarls. When I’m finished, there won’t be the smallest scrap of your thoughts left.

You won’t, I think, adding my strength to Silvoa’s. Because this is the end.

I throw my power in Prime’s face, raw and unfocused. At the same time, Silvoa works delicately, out in the nearly infinite complexity of the Harbor system, cutting the strands that support Prime’s energy one by one. He fights back, slashing and parrying, but her mastery of the system is beyond him. Step by step, Prime weakens, and Silvoa and I come more into sync.

I can feel her, inside my mind. Her thoughts, her memories. Kissing Catoria, the younger girl standing on tiptoe, the warmth of her. And the things Prime did to her, first in the flesh and then in the spirit. Every day a more imaginative, more horrible torment, skin flayed and bones broken, and all with the certain knowledge that there could not even be an escape into death—

I’m not sure which of us is screaming, now. Prime’s defending energy falls away, and his ghost-form is engulfed in a torrent of rushing gray power, blasting it apart. The shape glows white for a moment, then dissipates into shimmering motes.