Chapter 55: 54. The Breach

Atop the gate was a huge complex of machinery. From far-off it looked like a small house, but it was not small. Nothing in Seneria was small. It extended up stories from the top of the wall and blocked the way ahead. They came to an archway, where in any other place there might have been a gate or door leading inside the complex.

Here there was nothing, save for a red field that blocked the way ahead.

A forcefield.

Mother sighed. “We cannot get past this without magic.”

“Do you have the key?” Aletheia asked Trito.

“No,” Trito said, but he stepped to the forcefield regardless.

“Your ancient wisdom has done well by us again,” Mother said.

The adults bickered. Corvo hated to listen. Instead his attention turned toward the parapet. He climbed onto it and looked down—not at the city, but toward the dark road that led through its mouth, the overgrown highway where a duel of magic had taken place on the horizon some hours earlier.

A collection of corpses lay spread across the cobblestone. Their shapes looked like shadows in the distant darkness, the red manastorm just barely bright enough overhead to make them out. They were small, child-like, and set out in a column. At their feet walked an indistinct figure.

Corvo leaned forward for a better look. The walls were so high, they were so far, that he didn’t think he could be seen.

Then the figure looked up.

It was a man, and his eyes were black.

A hand grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him back down the parapet.

“We can’t be seen, Corvo,” Aletheia said. “Don’t look. Okay? Just look at me.”

“This is a waste of time,” Mother said. “You have brought us the wrong way.”

Trito was at the forcefield. He pressed his hand to it and held it there, silently, while Dorian watched and Mother rolled her eyes. She came back near Corvo, shaking her head, when Trito replied:

“There.”

The forcefield fell.

They all stared into the darkness. Humming came from within, like a lullaby spoken with infinite breath. A few blue and red lights shone on the black ground.

“You did have the key,” Mother said.

“No,” Trito said. “I am the key. I have authorization to this facility. Come.”

He led them within. A torch was pulled from his backpack and lit with his strange box that produced flame instantly in the hand. He gave the torch to Mother, who cringed; Mother handed it to Aletheia, who shrugged; Aletheia handed it to Dorian, who took it with a sigh.

The humming became much louder. They entered a large room covered with grown-over and shattered windows. Above them, up a flight of stairs, were eight machines—the sources of the lights and the noise. Lines of red and blue ran from each along the wall, underfoot, to the now-gone forcefield, and out of sight down the same staircase leading to the city streets.

Corvo dared a glance over the edge.

He saw the gatehouse.

It wasn’t a gate. It was a forcefield, like the door. Along its sides stood huge, crackling coils of mana that sizzled in the air.

“Who maintains this?” Aletheia asked.

“The batteries charge themselves here. They have never run dry,” Trito said.

“But it’s been so long.”

“We have seen this before,” Mother said. “But elsewhere the batteries have not been necessary. The ancient machinery runs when it is powered by the mana in the air, and lies dormant when expended. This is how—this is a principle I have exploited in the past.”

“Some defense mechanisms continue to run without power, as you indicate,” Trito said. “But the gates may do both. These keep them active in perpetuity.”

“Someone else must have access to here, then,” Aletheia. “How else would they be able to go through the gates?”

“Many do. My father had many sons, who themselves had many sons. Those who are still living are best not to be met. We should not linger here.”

They reached the far end of the complex. Trito lowered another forcefield, and they continued forward again.

Corvo’s legs burned by the time the walls came to a stop. To their right, over the parapet, the forest appeared again. It was dense and thick and the stone on the walls became more weathered than it was elsewhere. Sometimes Corvo could smell salt faintly on the air, but never for long in the blowing breeze. To the left the city continued unabated, sprawling seemingly forever while it was slowly reclaimed by the forest from without.

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The place they stopped was like the breach in a boat’s hull. This was where the tide of the forest was let in, or so it looked.

There was a huge breach in the wall. It stopped and did not start again for half a mile in the distance, where it then seemed to continue on as it had before.

Everything between here and there was totally overgrown. He felt like he was staring downward to see a luminescent rainbow, so bright and varied were the colors of the plants underfoot.

“We must go through the city from here,” Trito said.

“And where are your fabled stairs?” Mother asked.

“Here, of course,” Trito said. He stepped to the edge of the wall, and plummeted off.

Everyone jolted forward to get a look at what had happened. Corvo gasped. They met on the ledge, staring downward.

Trito had not plummeted off. He stood on another narrow staircase carved into the wall, much like the one they had scaled on the mountaintop butte. This led down into the canopy, then, presumably, the city below.

“I hope you manage to learn Mass Recall before we leave,” Aletheia huffed. “I’m sick of climbing.”

“Me too,” Corvo said. “I hate climbing.”

“Me also,” Mother said. She glanced at Dorian. “You first.”

He glared at them. But he went first, descending quickly, and the rest of them went after him.

It was a very scary way down. But with Mother’s help, down was easier than up.

They descended beneath the canopy. It was much brighter there than above; and while Corvo found the forest frightening, he preferred the lights from leaves to that of the mana maelstrom overhead. Soon they reached the forest floor.

Ruins were strewn everywhere. Toppled over bricks and gardens where trees had broken free from their prisons. The skeleton of the wall, toppled over, had been left cluttered everywhere like marbles thrown from a child’s hands. Now they were little more than cyclopean boulders, forever to be consumed by the woods.

Trito led them around the trunks of trees, over a running stream, through a thicket, and into a city street.

The path set out in stone millennia ago could still be seen. But the trees grew thick to its sides, and in places other plants, shrubs and cactuses with blinding pink flowers, broke through the path in their search of the mana pouring from the sky.

But the trees thinned the deeper they went, and the ruins became larger. Columns appeared. They passed beneath a huge arch, where between vines were carved men on horseback, and soon the canopy disappeared.

They were beneath the red clouds once again.

They stopped to camp in a ruin. Dorian slept far away from the others, despite warnings of the Shadow Man, while Trito kept watch.

It was an uneventful night. But come morning, as they set out again, Trito brought them around a bend in the road, and another street came into view.

And a monster stood directly ahead of them.

It was a dozen feet away. Standing, its back to them, with its head lowered to the ground. It made a noise and tore with its head, lurching backward, stretching upright.

It had two legs and no arms and was the height of the Tower of Keraz. Its head could dwarf a carriage, and its eyes glowed orange like a cat’s.

It took another bite.

Its victim was impossible to see. But it was huge, whatever it had been.

They paused. No one moved.

Trito pointed to an alleyway. Two buildings blocked the way inside, and the monster wouldn’t have fit within.

He led them into it.

“What was that?” Dorian snapped. “What the hell was that thing?”

“An anastimenos,” Trito said. He didn’t stop walking.

“I’m an anastimena,” Aletheia said beneath her breath, but Corvo didn’t think he was meant to hear.

“What does that mean?” Dorian said.

“A resurrected one,” Mother said. “Like the creatures in Telmos.”

“Many years ago, before the Age of Man, there walked creatures such as those across the Earth,” Trito said. “My people found their bones and put them on display. The Fall gave them life again. They have plagued Seneria, and Telmos, ever since.”

“Are they nice?” Corvo asked.

“They are animals.”

Trito said nothing further.

They lurked slowly through the city. Twice they came across groups of distant humanoids, but Trito always knew some redundant path, taking them out of the roads and into alleys. Once he led them onto the third story of a large building, mostly intact, and they waited while a patrol of three figures passed them by.

They wielded spears and rode atop the backs of creatures just like the anastimenos; these were smaller than the last, with longer tails and arms hanging at their sides. They and their riders were draped in black armor, and they moved slowly, unconcernedly, glancing in every direction.

Mother held Corvo while they passed. Her grip was so tight that it hurt, and he cried softly.

Mother covered his mouth.

When the riders were gone, she hugged him and brought him to the wall.

“How many orcs are in the City?” she whispered.

“Many more than those three,” Trito said. “There is nowhere with more magic than Ewsos. It keeps an orc alive far longer than he would survive elsewhere.”

“One more reason to hurry up,” Dorian said.

So they hurried. Yet when they set camp again to rest hours later, the same happened. From the second story of an apartment building, stripped empty but still standing, a rider on a strange lizard-like creature passed them by.

And behind him followed goblins.

Corvo knew them for what they were. He recognized them from Gob, his long-lost servant and guardian. They were small, twisted, and hideous creatures, all armed and in various levels of armor, and they marched in a legion behind the rider, in clumsy and awkward step.

First twelve passed. Then twenty-four. Then thirty-six.

Then the column faded into the distance.

This time Trito was the one to sigh in relief.

“We’re lucky they didn’t smell your magic,” he said to Mother. “A goblin is very sensitive to the allure of mana.”

Mother said nothing.

Aletheia pulled her knees into her chest.

“Is it true that orcs give birth to goblins?” she asked, suddenly. “Is it—really true?”

He stared at her. He had his pipe in his hands, taken out for the first time in days—or moons—from his pack. But he didn’t light it. He only chewed on it.

“A greater goblin is born from a male and female orc’s union,” he said. “Or the union of an orc and—another. Often unwillingly. You would struggle to tell such twisted progeny from their parents. The lesser goblin is the child of the greater goblin, with his or her own orcish parent, or another, or a separate goblin. Their power diminishes with each generation.”

“They’re incestuous,” Dorian said. “What isn’t?”

“What’s incestuous?” Corvo said.

Mother tugged his hair. “Not now, my crow.” She looked to Trito. “I would prefer if you waited to have these discussions until my son was asleep.”

“I would prefer if you were grateful for the service I’ve offered,” Trito said.

Mother grew suddenly tense. Corvo saw her tongue move within her mouth. She took a breath.

But she didn’t strike. She held her tongue. She only shook her head.

“I am grateful,” she said. “Even if I do not show it.”

Aletheia interjected, “So they’re leading their own children into battle. The orcs.”

“In some sense,” Trito said. “But the Regizar’s elves also make use of them. They are seen as little more than automatons. Like the horses we ride into battle.”

“Are they more than that?” Dorian asked. “Our goblin wasn’t. Not really.”

Trito shrugged. “They are abominations. I can say no more than that. Now we should be quiet. I will wake you if they come again.”

“And what if they find us?” Aletheia said.

“Then I hope you’ve worn your armor to sleep,” he said.

That was enough instruction for Corvo. He did not take off his armored jacket all night. Nor did Aletheia, nor did Mother.