Page 87 of City of Stone and Silence

“What kind of feelings?” I ask.

“Silvoa was my friend. More than that. She taught me … many things. I would never have survived Soliton without her.” He shakes his head. “And Catoria was my friend, once. Prime killed the one and twisted the other against me. Hate is counter to the divine will, but … he has a great deal to answer for.”

I wonder if I should tell him that Silvoa is still—not alive, not really, but still around. Probably, I decide, it wouldn’t make him feel any better.

“I agree,” I say instead. “I’m going to see that he pays.”

“The Divine Being does not sanction revenge,” Gragant says, half to himself. “But the divine plan moves through strange orbits.” He stops as we reach a landing, facing a single doorway. “Here. No one has entered this place since Silvoa died.”

Five years ago, by the Harbor calendar. More like a hundred, as far as the world outside is concerned. Time rushes past, and I try in vain to grab for it. I wonder if it’s already too late, if I’ll return to the beach to find Soliton gone.

“Stay here,” I tell Meroe.

“As usual,” she mutters.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I say. “But Silvoa did this, didn’t she?”

Gragant nods.

“I’ll be fine.” I touch Meroe’s shoulder, and lean in to kiss her, then turn to the door.

The light from Gragant’s lantern doesn’t seem to reach past the threshold, leaving the room beyond in darkness. I step forward, and motes of faint gray ripple around me. I blink, and as my eyes adjust I can see the flows of Eddica energy, feel the power pulsing through the walls. The room looks similar to Soliton’s control chamber, the walls and floor made of interwoven, interlocking metal wires and conduits. They cross, merge, and divide in impossible profusion, but the energy flows toward a small dais at one end of the chamber, where a metal disc is linked to several of the largest pipes.

Something’s different, though. I don’t hear the whispers, the half voices of the dead that haunt Soliton and its angels. Here the Eddica energy feels … pure, maybe, refined. I cross the room and take the short step up onto the dais. The doorway behind me glows, a rectangle in the field of ghostly gray.

The flows coil around me, curious, almost aware. I reach out with my own power to touch them, and Eddica energy sparks across the gap between me and this—thing, machine, relic, whatever it is. For a moment I feel it thrashing at the back of my skull, and I suppress the reflex to shove it away.

Words write themselves across my mind, accompanied by a flat, dead-sounding voice.

access request received; home//melchior

result:

authorized/accepted

Well, says Prime, look who’s come calling.

For one shattering moment, the pain is so great I nearly scream.

The flows that surround me, gray and calm, turn sharp and angry. They slash at my mind like vicious birds, biting and tearing. Prime has been waiting, deep in the Harbor system, coiled like a razor-toothed bear trap.

But he doesn’t control it, not fully. If he did, he could have used the angels against us, not merely his reanimated corpses. I push my own power toward him, taking control, and the flows around me turn back. They ripple outward, thrashing against the stream of incoming energy, forging a narrow space of safety.

I don’t know what I’m doing, here, in this strange domain. But I get the sense that Prime doesn’t, either. He rakes my defenses, and I can feel his anger, his growing frustration. When he finally stops, I uncurl from my metaphorical crouch, and find his face hanging in front of me, built of flowing gray motes, eyes like dark holes in space.

Marvelous, he says. You are truly an adept. I admit I had my doubts.

So happy I didn’t disappoint you, I answer.

On the contrary. He misses the sarcastic spin. I have been nothing but impressed by your perseverance. When you join me, we will reach true greatness.

I don’t plan on joining you.

Not yet. His tone is insufferably smug. But you will. You’ll come to realize, as I have realized, what truly matters. His phantom lips twist into a horrible smile. That’s why you’ve been brought here. Do you want to know the true history of this place?

All I want is to get out of here, I snarl.

But the Harbor was made for you, he says, with a chuckle. Quite literally. Our kind—the Eddicants—built it. A paradise that only we could rule, a base for our empire.