Page 76

He didn’t flinch when his cell’s lock clanged and his door finally squealed open. Light flooded the dim, dark space, flaring into his retinas so Orpheus had to squint to see the silhouette framed in the doorway.

Atticus had come, but not alone. Duluth entered the cell first, crouching beside Orpheus while Serval jerked a waxed cotton hood over his head. Then he was on his feet, chain releasing from the wall and causing him to stumble into the hallway, broken leg still unable to take his weight.

“Ah, ah, careful now.” Atticus’ voice came from close beside him, then a crutch was pushed into his hands. “Feel up to a tour today?”

They went slow while he grew accustomed to the crutch. It skittered over the stone, the meager cushioning wedged under his arm not enough to soften the crush of wood into his armpit, especially when they encountered what felt like an endless tower of stairs. By the time Atticus brought him to a stop Orpheus’ whole body ached. Stale air filled his hood, moist with his breath, fabric woven so tightly he couldn’t see anything but the filtered brown light of a sun long risen. Then Atticus removed his hood, and what greeted him stole the air from his lungs.

A pale blue sky stretched from one edge of the earth to another, the gray haze of the Rim hanging low over the horizon, the spires that they’d passed on their way to Sanctuary black strikes against the sky. Behind him, Sanctuary rose in a quiet sprawl. This high up, there was very little activity to see. The crowds they’d encountered days ago were dots along the canals, colors muted by the haze, shop awnings a rainbow of pastel smears amongst the black and gray. Only the highest rooftops pierced the low hanging fog some hundred meters below.

There was no denying it was a stunning view.

“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Forearms propped atop the wall, Atticus looked out over the city with a fondness that made Orpheus’ chest tight. “This city wasn’t built by our ancestors, you know. It existed long before our forefathers had even whispered their country’s name. When the original Architects tore open the world, they summoned the bones of this place from the depths of Hell to protect us. Those spires you see? They were our shield. The sigils embedded in the stone…” Atticus ran a finger along the edge of the railing and Orpheus saw them, etched into the surface, like those of the Gilded Palace but smaller, forged alongside the rock itself rather than added as an afterthought. “They gave this place life. Energy. Light. Transportation. Magic.”

“Why did they do it? The Incident?” It was the question that had haunted him since he and Fenrir discovered the truth within the Keep so many months ago.

“Why does an immune system attack a virus? There’s first-hand accounts I could show you. Films that documented the decay of civilization, its dwindling resources, an increasing demand on the infrastructure by those pushing the limits of what they could take, the power and wealth they could amass. People had been suffering for decades by that point, all because they were caught in the crossfire of the ruling world class.” Atticus looked over the city, eyes paler than Fenrir’s catching the light so Orpheus could barely see the tiny black pins of his pupils. “Civilization was on a collision course with itself, a critical mass of sorts. The chasm was their only hope.”

“Hope?” Orpheus repeated. “Killing everyone was their only hope?”

Atticus closed his eyes as if in remembrance, like he’d been there making the decision himself.

Orpheus really wanted to punch him.

“Only the most extreme act would halt the momentum. So that’s what they did. A small faction within our ruling government became attuned to the fact that strange energy readings were beginning to chart with every bomb that came down. They were temporary spikes, but unnatural enough to get the attention of one of our earliest Architects. Originally a weapon’s engineer, he became disillusioned with the job when the bombs didn’t solve the world’s conflicts and turned to the esoteric teachings of the occult for guidance. He was no wizard, but if his research was correct, he didn’t need to be to cast a spell. It was a gamble, but an opportunity of such potential he could not stand idly by. The escalation of conflict was unstoppable by that point, so he approached the most skilled and knowledgeable of our country’s best and offered them a chance to be the first to call Sanctuary home. He designed both the bombs that would drop, and the spell that would save us.”

“A spell,” Orpheus breathed. “A sigil, to summon Sanctuary. The massive amount of Netherflame opening the chasm unleashed ignited it.”

Atticus’s attention slid back to him and he nodded. “Precisely. The bombs fell, and Hell tore open, creating chasms all across the surface of the world that put an end to humanity, all except those harbored within that Architect’s spell.”

“But people survived.” Orpheus lifted his bound hands to gesture towards the gray haze hanging low over the Rim. “The chasms didn’t kill everyone, at least not right away. People survived and they suffered, while Sanctuary did nothing. Your people saved themselves at the cost of everyone else on Earth.”

“I believe the Architect’s argument would have been he served the greater good.”

“And we all know how that works out,” Orpheus snapped.

“Feeling a kinship to him, are we?”

Orpheus bared his teeth and, beside him, Atticus laughed.

“Yes, the Architect saved who he deemed worthy, but hard choices had to be made. It would have been an impossible endeavor to save more than he did. He took the best and the brightest and allowed humanity the opportunity to survive while purging the Earth of its infection.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, raw Netherflame is as deadly as any bomb’s fallout, and it doesn’t just go away with time. That chasm was never closing on its own.”

“No, but it remained self-contained, until some rogue heretics created a dark sorcerer who went ahead and began making it bigger.”

“I didn’t know that was happening,” came out weaker than Orpheus expected. “I’ve paid for my mistakes.”

“I’m sure you think you have. Unfortunately, justice is meant to serve the victims, not the aggressor, no matter how guilty a conscience one may have. However, I’ll admit the fall of our shield was a sign we should have moved on from Sanctuary and fulfilled our destiny as our forefathers intended, but with my wife dead and Lore on the other side of the Deadlands, I hesitated to risk any more lives. Sanctuary was built for a siege, not to attack. We were safe here, or so I thought.”

Desperation may have turned these people into a cult of devotion to the city that had protected them for generations, but Atticus was right. A small cadre of spies may be able to navigate the chasm, but a whole host of a city making the journey with creatures like the Prometheus guarding the way? It was a death sentence without considering what would have happened when they arrived on Lore’s doorstep.

How long would Sanctuary have remained peacefully hidden if he hadn’t been given his magic?

You did this, rose from the miasma of his thoughts. You did this to them, you and your magic.

But he hadn’t known, so could he really be blamed?

Beside him, Atticus stood in mirror to Orpheus’ quiet, looking out across the city below, sunlight drawing strange shapes from his face, the silence suddenly suffocating.