The wagon carrying my cage turned onto another street. A massive industrial structure filled much of my forward view. I immediately knew it had to be our destination.
The Empyreal Glassworks.
Sure enough, the wagon continued ever closer. We were allowed to pass through a locked gate, after a pair of clerical guards checked the copper mesh around me for holes or weak points. I wondered what was so important about the copper. Possibly something to do with their fears of magic.
The wagon continued along a fine gravel road to what looked like a back entrance to a significant building. It was close to the centre of the complex, with a great many towers arrayed around it.
I noted that it was mid morning, and there were few clouds in the sky. Anything powered by the sun would be heating up splendidly. That was not something I wanted to think about, but it was not really avoidable.
BEEP BEEP
I was now much closer to Skids. Or at least to Skids' scryer.
My emotions were caught between relief for my family and city, and worry for Skids. As my mind recollected the events of last night — if it was last night — my worries grew and extended. What had happened to the others who had been below me in the train? My intended Timothy, and the tonic-blinded Gabian.
Timothy... I hoped he had escaped serious injury. He'd started the mission with less limbs to lose. We were quite the pair now.
I glanced uneasily at the limp sleeve of my white cotton dress. The dress was a twin to the one I had woken in after the fire. After I had lost my eye. After I had failed.
This time I had succeeded. This time I had saved lives. I just hoped I had not lost anyone else in the process.
The arm, I could live with. Without. Whatever. But that was not all I had lost. My engagement ring was gone. So were the tally marks on my arm. The symbol of promise, and the record of wrongs.
Something else was gone too. Something immaterial. A constant companion in my head, reminding me of the laws I had broken or might break. I had never been truly sure whether that was my own voice reciting the truths I had memorised, or the voice of the Great Maker, reminding me of his will for my life. Was there a difference? Whatever the case, that voice had been a near-constant companion for years. It had not faltered until I met Skids. Was Skids truly a dark influence on me?
"Hey Charity, you made it! You kept me waiting for three days!" That was Skids, putting on a pretense of cheerfulness.
"Three days?" I mirrored back, still sounding hoarse. My Codex-sense had failed me briefly before, but three days after being knocked out felt significant. Final. Something had changed drastically.
"Three sunsets, four sunrises. You barely made it to that first sunrise."
The wagon stopped, making it easier for me to track the source of Skids' voice. Dro was several metres away, in a copper cage much like my own. "What are the copper cages for?" From what little I could see, Skids looked normal. Normal for a mage forced to wear something directly opposed to dro's usual style, that is.
"Really, that's what you choose to ask me about? Not the almost dying part?"
"I'm alive now. That can wait."
"Heh. They say it's to prevent magical contagion and manipuation, or some such sun-addled nonsense. Though copper is a good conduit for aether flows, so they might be on the right track with that. I think it would protect against an ABAM. Not that we have any left. Good job with that by the way."
Something lit up inside me upon hearing that last part. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, you saved Forrester's Crossing with that. I admit it was a team effort all the way, but all that could have been for nothing if you hadn't finished the job. Though you did make a big mess of it. Worse than I did the day we met. You tipped the whole engine over." Dro stopped to take a breath. "Uh, how's the arm?"
I almost yelped at a stab of pain caused by my left shoulder hitting copper. The clerics had offloaded my cage from the wagon, and they hadn't done it gently.
"My right arm is perfectly fine, I think. Did you see where the other went?" I tried to sound flippant.
"Not really. There was a whole steam engine on top of it."
"Ah."
Silence ruled the next few minutes.
I looked around for the clerics who had brought me here. It was difficult to spot them through the gaps in the copper mesh. After awkwardly craning my neck around I spotted them sitting watchfully in folding chairs. They were several meters apart and a little closer to Skids and I than we were to each other. That put them outside spitting distance, while preventing us from communicating unheard. Not that I cared what they heard. Nor would I spit on a cleric. Skids might try though, so it was for the best that this wasn't possible.
"How did you get caught?" I asked once my curiosity outgrew the conversational inertia.
"Hmm? Oh, right, that. Like I said before, you came close to dying. You were losing a lot of blood when I got to you."
I wanted to ask how everyone else had fared, but I did not want to name anyone else who'd been present, or imply that we'd been helped. I didn't know how much the clerics knew, so it was best to avoid giving them a way to condemn anyone else. "So you kept me alive until a patrol showed up?"
"Yeah. Lucky for you, the train slid far enough out of the detonation zone that they were willing to approach. And lucky for me, they were in a 'ask questions first, fire later' mood."
"I doubt they have too many more questions before we get to experience the 'later' part of that," I said, voicing my fears.
"Looks that way."
"If you'd fled—"
"No. I don't want to hear that."
"Thanks," I said instead. "Um... So they confiscated all our gear again? Was anything broken?"
"Yeah, they took your stuff, and my stuff. And no, there was no other damage," Skids answered, with a bit of unusual emphasis. I hoped that meant no one else had been injured or captured.
"Your scryer is in that crate over there," I said, pointing at the other side of the huge space we were in. I hadn't looked around much at the glassworks, as it was difficult to understand the overall picture through the small gaps in the mesh.
"You're probably right," Skids said. "How are you so sure?"
"That's what I'd like to know. I'm hearing the helmet beeps. But with no helmet."
"Huh? That can't be right."
My unease spiked upwards. "It can't? I was hoping you could explain this."
"Just to be clear, you're hearing directional beeps, like what your helmet was doing the other night?"
BEEP BEEP
"Yes, ever since I woke up. Which wasn't very long ago. They pretty much pushed me into a shower, then into my cage, and onto a cart."
"Is there anything in your ears?"
I poked the inside of my ears, one at a time. "Nothing."
"Then it's a complete mystery."
"This isn't the sort of mystery I like." I usually enjoyed mysteries, but not when they involved my head.
"Then I recommend you forget about it for now and instead solve the mystery of how we're going to get out of here," Skids said, sounding increasingly frantic. I soon saw why. A door had opened on Skids' side of the room, and a stream of men had begun filing into the room. I could not see them well, but the front ones wore clerical suits.
"Looks like its time for our trial," I said, quite unnecessarily.
"Great, the last people we get to see are a new bunch of strangers. Assuming you don't know any of these people. Wait, I remember that one! From the patrol."
From my angle, I couldn't quite see anyone's faces. "From the Forrester's Crossing patrol? After I crashed the train?" The crowd dispersed enough that I could tell that not all were men.
"No, from after I crashed the train."
My father was here. And my mother was with him.