The Curse of the Winged Scorpion
The wrong inside you

Aharsh wind tore across the deserted train platform, yanking on the ends ofFantel’s borrowed coat. The last hour had been an education in casualcorruption. After leaving Vedeca Fantel had stood back and watched Rasharifirst slip Arundel a bribe, then pass along smaller ‘tips’ to a number ofskyport engineers to ensure Vedeca would be repaired and stored in one of theskyport’s high security private hangars until such time as they were ready toretrieve her. What struck Fantel about the whole affair was how open Rashariwas about it. He didn’t even attempt to hide what he was doing, or disguise hisactions as anything other than open corruption. Fantel supposed it saidsomething about the state of Aramant’s government that such lazy criminalitydid not raise a flicker of interest among anyone they passed. She actuallywondered why Rashari had even attempted his Lourand Rousseau deception to beginwith; clearly everyone in the Aramant Air Patrol was on the take.

Finallythey were escorted along a series of long windowless passages out of theskyport and through the subterranean complex to the adjoining train station,etched out of a natural cavern in the side of the mountain. Once there Arundelspoke to the station master and, grudgingly, commanded the man to provide herand Rashari with the necessary paperwork to enter Aramantine. The stationmaster initially resisted, unhappy about providing paperwork for a non-humansavage, but was swiftly dissuaded from further objection when Rashari onceagain dipped a hand into the satchel and handed over more coin.

Nowthey had nothing left to do but wait for the train. Glittering phantasmalanterns, strung on thick cables hanging above their heads, bobbed in the windcutting along the tracks. The light behind the glass shell of the lantern changedcolour constantly with every shift in the breeze. It hurt Fantel’s eyes to looktoo long on them. In daylight she might have admired the view; the platform wasbuilt out of the mountain side, and the track swooped down at a death-defyingangle before twisting around the side of the mountain and out of view, butdarkness blanketed the area and fatigue dragged at her mind and body.

“Itdoes not seem very efficient,” she said finally when the silence stretched evenbeyond her tolerance.

“Hmmwhat?” Rashari started, glancing over to her as if he’d forgotten she wasthere. The light from one of the lanterns fell across half his face, castinghis features in a wash of angry red and cold blue shadow.

“Thebribes,” she elaborated. “All that money you gave away; it does not seem like avery efficient way for a criminal to behave.”

“Ohthat,” He smiled, just a little. “It really wasn’t that much. It was counterfeitcoin anyway.” He shrugged.

“Counterfeit?”Fantel shifted her weight from one foot to the other. This high up the air wassharp and thin and the wind relentless.

“AdranOrlens are accepted just about anywhere.” He explained. “But your averageAramite is like to see the genuine article once in a blue moon. They seesomething that looks like an Orlen and they don’t ask questions – they’ve noreason to – and by the time they replace out their coin isn’t worth the time ittook to smelt it we’ll be long gone already.”

Fantelquirked an eyebrow, she was not quite sure what to make of Rashari’s matter offact dishonesty. She didn’t know if his honestdishonesty was refreshing or somewhat insulting. She also couldn’t work out whyhe was so willing to tell her all this. They were all but strangers. How couldhe be sure she wouldn’t use everything he had told her against him? “What aboutthe skyport employees you bribed to repair Vedeca?” She asked.

“Theygot the real coin, obviously.” Heshrugged again and then winced, rubbing his shoulder. “So did Arundel. And nodoubt they’ll be pawing through the cargo hold right now, looking for more ofthe same.”

“Youdon’t seem worried.” She pointed out, thinking about the forged bank bonds andweaponry she had seen in the hold. It seemed odd that he would be so blaséabout strangers traipsing through Vedeca looking to loot her wares.

“Smithwill make sure the important things are kept out of sight,” he stifled a yawnbehind his hand, “and if they try to hack my girl’s systems or strip her forparts they’ll be in for quite the nasty surprise.” He turned to face herdirectly and smiled. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have left Vedeca if I didn’tthink she’d be well treated. We had a scare tonight, took a couple of knocks,but my girl will be alright.”

Fantelpondered his words for a moment before asking: “What is Vedeca really? I haveheard of ships that can think, but I had not thought they were truly alive.”

“Mostaren’t,” he replied easily.

Fantelbraced against another blast of cold wind, brushing her hair out of her eyes asthe wind whipped it about like a pennant. “Then why is Vedeca different?”

Rashariturned his face away, ostensibly turning his face away from the breeze, butFantel recognised the action as the delaying tactic it truly was. “I made her,”he said finally so quietly the wind almost stole the truth away before it couldbe heard, “Just like I made Smith.” He met her eyes, the light of the bobbinglanterns making his eyes look like dark pits bored into his skull. “I’m sureyou’ve guessed already. Smith and Vedeca are a part of me and a part of me isin both of them.”

Somethingsettled deep inside Fantel, some nameless, almost formless suspicion relaxinglow in her stomach. “This is more than technomancy – what you do is magic Ihave never seen before. Even phantasma cannot make a machine live. The ghostsof the dead are merely whispers of what was. An airship may fly by devouringthe dead, but it cannot gain a soul of its own that way. Even you humans havenot managed to subjugate nature to such a degree.”

“Areyou sure?” A strange smile danced over the edges of his lips. “We humans are ablasphemous and reckless lot. How do you know we haven’t found a way tomanufacture a soul from thin air? Gods alone know we have a natural talent fordestroying them. Why is it so hard to believe we can’t counterfeit them too?”

Fantelmight have demanded he explain what he meant by that but at that moment ashrill whistle screamed through the night. Fantel whipped around as the trainchuffed toward the platform. It came to a stop in a deafening screech of heavybrakes and wailing steam, a big heavy black engine almost invisible in thenight, dragging behind it wood carriages with curtained windows and brasshandles on the doors.

Theyboarded in silence, walking down the narrow corridor past private passengercabins, chestnut doors locked tight against intruders and lace curtains pulledclosed. They found an empty cabin halfway down the fifth carriage. Rasharicollapsed onto the green velvet bench seat. A small, cheerily tasselled lampbolted down to the table top was the cabin’s only source of light.

“Pittake me, I’m shattered.” Rashari groaned thumping his elbows down on top of thescratched table top, head hanging as if it weighed a ton. “This has been avery, very long day.”

“Indeed,”Fantel snorted, amused at his staggering understatement. She settled herselfmore gingering in the seat opposite. The curtains were open and she could seethe pulsing black night out of the window. The edge of the mountain fell awayinto a sheer drop allowing an uninterrupted view of the stars winking coldly,and the faint, phantasma tinged swirls of smoke puffing past as the traingroaned into life and pushed forward with a jolt. The chunter of the train’spistons thundered through her ears, a deep, rhythmic backbeat pulsing throughher core. Rashari bestirred himself, pulling their freshly acquired paperworkfrom his pocket and dumping it carelessly across the table. He was propping hishead up on one hand, right elbow resting on the table top. One unexpected joltand Fantel thought he’d fall face first into the table. His left hand lay meekand quiet on the table. She studied the heavy droop of his eyelids, the sleepysoftness of his features.

“Areyou a scion?” She asked him, voice soft.

“No,”he replied equally softly, eyes almost completely closed. “Not anymore.”

Fantelsat back against the seat. “What are you then?”

“Damaged,”he smiled a sad little twist of his lips. He sounded like he was talking in hissleep. “I’m broken. There was an accident…years ago…a stupid, stupidaccident…my father tried to fix me. He blamed himself for what happened.”

“Thereis a hole inside you.” Fantel murmured very softly. “I sensed it earlier whenLieutenant Roake tried to use anima to heal you. This is your ‘damage’?”

Rasharishifted, folding his arms over the table and laying his head on top. She barelycaught his nod. “Anima comes from the soul. You have to have a soul for healingmagic to work. I don’t.” He blinked open his eyes and gazed blindly at the doorof the cabin. “If I’m not careful I can hurt people. You know how it is withphantoms. They hunger for living souls, because they miss being alive. I’m notdead, but I have the same hunger inside me.” He lifted his head slightly tolook up at her. “What I am…what’s wrong with me, it’s so much worse than justnot having a soul. All that does is hurt me. I’m used to it now – theemptiness, knowing I’m something less than everyone else around me. I’ve beenthis way for so long it doesn’t bother me anymore. But what I can do– the harm I can do…” He sighed. “I had toleave –my father, my home, everything. D’you know what it’s like to realisethat you’re not right? To look around you and know that youdon’t fit and you never will, and the only way to stop the –the –wrongness in you from spreading, frommaking everything else wrong – is to leave. To run, and turn your back oneverything, and just keep running, knowing that it’s pointless, because youcan’t outrun what you are, but doing it anyway because…because there is still apart of you, a stupid, selfish part, that refuses to accept that everything inyou is wrong?”

Herblood pounding in her ears Fantel couldn’t speak. Her throat felt tight. Hervision blurred, the soft diffuse stillness of the train cabin melting awaybefore her eyes. The green of the seat cushions became a different green, deeperand more vibrant; the verdant glow of thick, dense foliage. The faint lingeringscent of smoke and phantasma clinging to the cool air of the cabin becameinstead the rich, heady aroma of deep, dank soil, black and teeming with life,smelling strongly of the rain that always pattered down from the canopy highabove, the air hot and humid, wrapping around her bare limbs like an embrace.The echo of the Great Pulse thrummed through her, reverberating through everyancient tree and fledgling shoot of grass in Aashorum. The echo of the voice ofMother Aldlis was hard and unforgiving in her ears, demanding that theintruders in her jungle be rooted out, driven forth, their polluting tainterased.

Fantellooked down into her clawed hands and saw blood, dark and bright and thick. Shesaw the bodies of the humans at her feet. The dire wolves she had conjured fromthe depths of the jungle’s fury snuffled at the corpses, their shadow brindledflanks panting and their snouts scarlet. Fantel crouched down beside the bodyof a human child she had killed because the Great Pulse demanded it. The law ofChimeri tolerated no intruders into their domain, not even scared and franticrefugees who had begged and pleaded for safe passage through the jungle. Yetsomething inside her had made Fantel look at what she had done and truly see.She saw, for the first time, her own reflection, not that of Chimera, one andall the same under the sway and roll of the Great Pulse, but instead onlyherself, alone, a killer of children. The world had shattered then, completelyand entirely. Not even the pounding roar of the Great Pulse could drive out theecho of her own horror.

Thetrain whistle shrieked loud enough to tear through the silence of the cabin.Fantel came back to herself with a gasp, chest tight and lungs burning with theneed to breathe. Her heart thundered and her eyes burned. She blinked rapidlyseveral times, muscles tense and drawn taut, coppery guilt heavy on her tongue.

“Yes,”she whispered. “I do know.”

Rasharididn’t answer. He was already asleep. Fantel sipped carefully at the air,breath hitching, and stared fixedly out of the window. She tried not to thinkabout what it felt like to be broken.