The one who had no name yet could only see the astonished puffy faces of Hark and Hurk, who immediately joined together several times in the big guy's hands and settled on the floor. Next to the bodies of the two fatties stood a stone table with small shackles. The monkey was on it. Or rather, what was left of her. On the surface of the table was a charred piece of head with chipped curls and ashes, and across the table was the furnace burning with a scarlet fire, where the pokers rested. Snorri roared, rushed to the furnace, and grabbed the poker from it. He turned toward the flaccid executioners lying on the floor, but at that moment shouts were heard in the corridor. Snorri froze hesitantly, then looked out the door and threw the poker there. Someone screamed at the top of the lungs, but the one who had no name yet could not see them in the clouds of steam. Snorri started rummaging through the torture chamber and snatched a small bag from a hook on the wall, where he carefully put Lila's remains and scooped up the ashes.
Clasping the bag tightly, he wrapped it with a dirty rag he'd grabbed from the table and tied it with rope, then swung it over his shoulder. He looked with hatred and frustration at the figures sprawled on the floor, grabbed two more pokers from the furnace, and dashed out into the corridor. Something bright and loud whistled over the head of the one who had no name yet. Snorri ducked down and threw the poker in the direction of the flash, which seemed to be the source of the rumble and noise. There was a shriek. And Snorri, knocking down the people lined up in the corridor like pins and pummeling them with the red-hot poker, had already made his way to the stairs and was climbing up in big leaps.
As he emerged from the well, several volleys were fired at him from the upper floors and from somewhere behind. From the tower above the door, a machine gun fired. The big guy darted into the next aisle behind the columns and, looping, ran toward the exit, where the figure of a knight in black armor could already be seen raising a double-edged sword. Snorri ran up to a column not far from the sinister figure and, cursing, bounced away as the knight brought it down with the sword strike. But while he was picking it up again, the big guy moved his tongue and spit out a white ball in his hand. The one who had no name yet watched with interest as the big guy swung and threw the ball at his opponent. The ball hit him in the opening of the metal neck and cracked on impact. A gleaming white dust covered the armor on the knight's back and shoulders. He jerked, purple smoke billowed from beneath his black armor and sparkled with white smoke, causing the knight to shake and fall to the grate floor.
In the resulting curtain, bright flashes whistled, but Snorri was at the door in two leaps, wrenched it open and got out. The door jingled with ricocheting bullets, and as he slammed it shut on the other side, there was a roar of engines over their heads, and Raud on the flying motorcycle was lowered onto the pier.
"Why didn't you pu..." Snorri growled menacingly at the octopus, but he didn't have time to finish, because the water swirled again, and another building began to rise from the other side of the pier.
The one who had no name watched in amazement as the building straightened, shining in the dawn sun with its pipes and pistons, and turned out to be a giant steam robot, from which a chrome-covered arm detached and reached out to them.
"Hurry up!" Raud shouted, and Snorri immediately jumped on the aircycle.
Raud jerked the machine upward, and the robot's arm missed in midair, crashing onto the pier and breaching it. A thunderous alarm sounded from the bucket that served as the giant's mouth, screaming until the steam robot's head slammed into the prison building with all its might.
The fugitives disappeared between the factory skyscrapers, and like a swarm of bees, the air garrison of the prison rushed after them.
"Why didn't you put the building down? They wouldn't have been able to start!" Snorri shouted, but his words were drowned out by the wind whipping in his face and the roar of the engines.
The one who had no name had no time to follow the road, experiencing only the constantly looming and increasing images, which made everything inside swirl and the consciousness slip away, trying to grab itself by the tail. He turned away and saw that behind him the world was shrinking and disappearing. But some points of it, on the contrary, were slowly coming closer. He could see flashes on them – now of different colors. At that moment everything swirled, and they disappeared for a moment, but then reappeared, glittering in a colorful rainbow.
This was repeated several times: flashes, swirls, flashes, swirls – until they suddenly began to fall downward. Snorri screamed:
"Why are you taking us to the factory again?! Are you half-wit?"
Raud did not answer, but sped up, and the aircycle raced past the factory buildings and salt barrels down to the boiler and the pipes. The spider-mechanics were habitually hidden by the sound of engines, but the boiler was still silent, so the steam didn't bother the fugitives, and they dashed quickly toward the well where Raud hurled the flying motorcycle down to the main collector pipe. The swarm of police scooters, which had popped up behind them, split into two streams again. The water level was much higher this time in the same sewer pipe where Lila had crashed, but Raud navigated the curves masterfully, leaving a plume of spray glistening in the police headlights behind him. The one who had no name yet saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and for the first time in his conscious life, he had a feeling of deja vu. He stretched out his hand forward hesitantly, but Snorri had time to notice and shout: "Raud! The pipe!" The octopus turned to the right, and they dodged a pin sticking out of the pipe at the last moment.
The aircycle darted out of the pipe, almost fell into the canal, and, raising a splash, flew along the embankment past the market, the Alley of the Blind, and the railroad bridge. In the meantime, there was an explosion and a rumble in the pipe, and only one police scooter managed to overcome the unexpected obstacle and continue in pursuit. Its pilot, the young but well-proven lieutenant Storm, taking advantage of the fact that he was carrying less payload, slowly reduced the distance between himself and the fugitives. They dashed past the Upper Gate and ducked into the darkness of the old pipe that sprouted through the Great Wall. Following the cone of the light, he felt a surge of confidence. There was nowhere for the bandits to go. Everything ended with a hole coming out behind the wall, and just beyond it was an open space where he could aim comfortably.
Indeed, the pipe led beyond the wall, a huge wall that encircled the entire City. As tall as an eighty-story building, it was carved into the rock and served at the same time as a quarry that supplied the needs of the builders. The City's dirty water was filtered in the wall, and the filtered mud drained through sewage pipes into the abyss of the moat behind it. Out of such a filtration pipe popped the flying motorcycle with the fugitives, followed by lieutenant Storm on his air scooter. Both motorcycles were moving over the gigantic empty space separating the torn line of rocks and the wall. The lieutenant figured out the enemy's drop point, calmly took aim, put his finger on the trigger, and fired a volley of twin machine guns at the left engine of the flying motorcycle.
The one who had no name yet whirled around. Snorri screamed. The motorcycle went into an uncontrollable spin. Raud grabbed the dashboard in a panic and gave full power to the remaining engine, pulling the steering wheel as hard as he could. Miraculously he managed to get out of the spin and still losing altitude they whizzed by a meter from the sharp rocks that encircled the opposite side of the moat. Snorri, hanging off the left side, reached for his holster, which was strapped to the hull. The motorcycle was shaking and the sharp splinters of granite were flying closer and closer. Their pursuer seemed to relish the triumph and was in no hurry to finish his wounded victim.
Snorri sighed heavily and stretched his fingers even harder, unlatching the holster. The gun slid down treacherously, risking a fall. Raud jerked the steering wheel, dodging a rocky ledge, and the gun fell out onto the seat, sliding further away from Snorri. The big guy held his breath and reached out as far as he could. The aircycle shook again, the second engine refused to draw so much power, and the gun jumped into Snorri's hand. At that moment, a volley of twin machine guns blazed across the rocks, raining down on the fugitives. Snorri took aim and shouted:
"Now play with this!"
The one who had no name yet saw a flash right in front of his face, a rumble and ringing filled his head. The dot that had stalked them twitched and vanished as it merged with the shape in the distance. The big guy was breathing heavily and grasping the slippery fuselage of the aircycle. The gun fell out of his hand – and there was a bang. A spin. A rumble. Darkness.
The massive door finally gave way, and Tamen pushed open the leaves, with the face of a woman carved into them. Hastily withdrawing his hands, feeling that he was committing blasphemy, he lowered his head and stood for some time hesitantly, immersed in deep memories. Then his hearing distinguished the rhythmic breathing of the pistons, and he succeeded in breaking free of the wave of images that enveloped him. He took a step, turned around, and closed the door behind him, which on this side had the face of a man. It was his parents: Sammarius Yomera and Anastasia Amun. The Usurper studied his father's pupils for a long time and tried to remember his real gaze, the one that had so frightened him as a child. It made him look at the floor almost all the time in his presence, and now he could not remember what they looked like. The artistically embellished images of his father and mother compared favorably in beauty, though in fact she was the only one truly beautiful. And Tamen got his looks from her, as did his brother, for that matter.
Yomera turned and looked around the hall. It was dark in the wide tower, which ended in a gigantic dome, with light appearing only around the metal hemisphere, next to which the pistons of the pumps worked, filling the coal smoke from the furnaces beneath the Temple with the breath of the Heart, covered by an intricately worked casing.
With each breath of the Heart, the glass portholes filled with a warm shimmer of scarlet and orange. With each exhale, it grew darker. At the top of the hemisphere led a wide metal staircase, similar in pattern and style to the staircase in the chest of Björnveig, the Usurper's dragon. This association did not make Tamen smile, but rather jabbed somewhere to the right of the center of his chest. He slowly walked over to the casing and peered through one of the portholes.
The Heart of this world, or rather what was left of it, was still beating. Once as shiny and strong as a ruby, it now looked more like a torn balloon that one tries to inflate from the inside, but all the air comes out. It used to exceed the size of the building where the casing was kept, but now it was dying, and no one knew or wanted to know what to do about it. Above the Heart, the smoke from the coal furnaces flowed through the glass pipes, enriched by its breath and becoming that black smoke. It now powered almost every moving machine in the City.
Tamen turned away from the porthole and began to walk up the steps, slowing down every time the light of the Heart faded, and speeding up whenever it flared up again. At the top, a throne awaited the Usurper. Wires rose from the casing to it and connected to the armrests and above, at shoulder, neck, and head level.
The throne resembled the open mouth of a dragon. Yomera walked around it, sliding his hand over the cold surface and marveling once again at how skillfully the wires had been woven into the structure, how gracefully they went under the scales and became the giant monster's "whiskers."
At the height of two human bodies, the throne was ringed in a wide circle by a metal platform with a pulpit in front of it. There were wires from the Heart casing to it as well, and small pedestals with notches of different shapes on the perimeter. A narrow, curved metal staircase with carved railings led to the platform from the throne. The platform had the same railings and was connected to the edges of the dome by several larger bridges. It hung from chains that stretched to its top, and they reminded the Usurper of a cage. He shivered.
"Oh, Your Majesty! Preparing for the ritual?" a rasping voice came from below.
Taken by surprise, the Usurper flinched and did not immediately recognize it, but then he pulled himself together and answered:
"Yes, you're right, Supreme, I remember."
"Very good, very good. How's our dearest Heart? Uh-oh. Still breathing. Praise the moons! Already coming up to you, Your Majesty!"
In the darkness, the figure of the Supreme Head of the Cult could not be seen. And the Usurper could only hear his senile grunting and uneven footsteps mingling with the breathing of pistons and the creaking of chains.
"I didn't realize you were here, Your Majesty. I came to check on the Heart, and then I heard someone walking around upstairs. I thought I was going to give those stupid clerics a beating, but then I guessed it was you," chuckled the hunched, whitish-eyed old man in a simple Cult robe with a hood over his face and a long, hook-shaped nose sticking out. He almost climbed up the stairs and stopped a few steps below the Usurper, breathing heavily.
"How nice, how nice that you climbed up here, Your Majesty. This is where your father and I used to train. I was to stand there behind the pulpit, and he was to sit on the throne," he took a breath and continued, "A rune was inserted into each of the pedestals around the perimeter. On the pulpit I would place the Book of Dictums, and your father would place his hands on the fangs, that is, on the handrails, look, there are notches there."
Tamen sat down on the throne and put his hands inside the dragon's fangs that ended the handrail. There were indeed notches for the palms.
"Lean your head back," the old man squeaked.
Yomera leaned back, and his head got into the opening in the backrest.
"That's right. Can you feel it? The burst should be coming in by now."
Tamen concentrated, but felt no "burst," only the coldness of the metal and the awkwardness of his position on the throne, forged by the figure of his more massive father.
"Try to imagine absorbing space into yourself," the Supreme's rasping voice prompted. The Usurper tried to imagine that he was absorbing invisible energy into himself, but again all he felt was coldness.
"I don't feel anything."
"Very well, very well, Your Majesty. Everything will come in time. Now you know how to try," the old man turned his head and nodded to the darkness. "Come here once in a while. That's how you'll learn."
"And how was it with my father?" the Usurper asked with a tone of demand.
The old man was quiet and then answered:
"Your father succeeded at once, Your Majesty. The energy was bubbling over."
They were both silent, and for a moment all that could be heard was the rattling of the chain and the breathing of the pistons.
"Your father was an exceptional man. This should in no way diminish your dignity, but you must understand that it was his idea and his wish. I was only doing his bidding when I designed the ritual. No wonder you don't get it right away. You need to understand and embrace his purpose. To want it," the Supreme said slowly.
Tamen paused for a moment and then answered:
"You're right. I'll have another read of my father's notes, it should help me better understand his motives."
"Absolutely, Your Majesty, absolutely," the old man murmured. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the Moon Day is approaching and my senile head is beginning to ache. I must be going."
"Will do," Yomera replied graciously.
The old man rose up and began to descend carefully, sideways, step by step.
"My respects!" his voice came from down below, and in the scarlet light of the Heart's breath, the Usurper could see his figure stretched out on the floor, disappearing in the next breath.
Tamen stared ahead of him and tried to feel even a whit of what he had once felt in his father. Confidence, ambition, eagerness, intransigence, the ability to subdue, to dominate – but he found only pale ghosts of these qualities. He secretly hated himself for being empty inside. But he did not know how to cultivate in himself the will to achieve what his father had been able to do. He got it all for nothing, because that crumpled old man was the one who supported him when Sammarius was killed. He couldn't imagine what it took to wield the kind of limitless power his parent had come to. And the Supreme was clearly not so free with his father. Like everyone else, he crawled before him and dared not make any decisions for himself, mindful of the square near the West Gate of the Palace. It's so hard to be the shadow of a tyrant. It's hard because you can't be yourself. Everyone expects you to be like him. If nothing else, at least a little more merciful. And behind it all, you die, shrouded in the armor of the image put on you by your surroundings.
Did he even exist?
Who is he?
Who is Tamen Yomera?