Hearing his voice finally undermined Marasi’s hope that Gave would resist the invasion. This complex, the supplies… everything about it indicated the truth. This was a bunker, the launching point of an invasion—and a place for Entrone’s favorites to be protected from the coming annihilation.
A haunting worry whispered this was only part of it. Marasi had to stop Entrone, but that wouldn’t protect Elendel from the bomb Telsin had trained on it. For that, she had to trust that Wax and Wayne were fulfilling their half of the mission. Her duty was to deal with this oncoming army. The men of gold and red.
The tunnel eventually expanded to a large cavern. But curiously, the far wall was straight wood, from floor to ceiling. And it felt like that wall bisected the chamber—which, judging by the slope of the blasted-out ceiling, was extremely large. The wooden wall had several darkened rooms built up against it. Indeed, the entire chamber was silent and mostly dark, lit only by a few emergency lights.
Marasi and Moonlight stopped at the mouth of the cavern. Was this the Community? Why split the cavern like that? Whatever the reason, the order to quarters had been obeyed, and apparently any soldiers in the area had gone to deal with TwinSoul. That let Marasi and Moonlight enter the cavern alone.
Soon after, those sounds came from behind again. Taking Moonlight by the shoulder, Marasi pulled them between two buildings beside the large wall. From this scant shelter, she watched as something entered the mouth of the cavern. It stood on four elongated legs and had an unnervingly long neck, with a head that wasn’t entirely canine. It hadfeatures that, even shadowed as they were, evoked an image that was… too human. A dog’s nose, or something approximating it, but human eyes set forward on its skull.
It had no clothing, but also no fur. Two spikeheads jutted from its shoulders. She’dheard of something like this before—Wax had encountered something similar in the tunnels beneath Elendel. Now, after studying the book Death had given her, she recognized what it was. A Hemalurgic monstrosity.
One use of the art was to create Metalborn. But the Lord Ruler had also used Hemalurgy to create twisted versions of human beings. The kandra had arisen from that work, as had the koloss. Creating those had required precision use of spikes—the knowledge of a god. If you tried to approximate such designs, you were likely to kill your subject. Or stumble into some kind of half-creation. A twisted mutation, leaving a being’s soul mangled by the spikes.
The Set, it seemed, had found a permutation that was viable but grotesque. The thing sniffed the air, then prowled carefully into the cavern. It knew they were there. It paused where Marasi and Moonlight had stopped to inspect their surroundings—a spot that was barely thirty yards from their current hiding place. The abomination made a hooting sound that echoed in the cavern, and other voices—dozens of them—replied.
Moonlight gripped Marasi’s shoulder, then pointed. She’dmade a door in the side of the structure they’dbeen hiding by, and they slipped into a dim room built up against the wooden wall bisecting the chamber. Two windows looked through it.
Marasi didn’t have a good view through them, not from her corner next to Moonlight. The door vanished, and a few moments later scratches sounded at the wall they’dpassed through. Silence followed, then a thumping at the main door. It held, for now.
Marasi unslung her rifle, glanced at Moonlight, then nodded toward the windows. Perhaps they could escape through those? She stepped over to look through, and found… a town?
Neat rows of houses lined streets within a vast chamber, bigger on that side than this one. It was lit from above with floodlights. Someone had painted imitation flowers and grass on the floor in wide swaths, and others had erected sculptures meant to imitate foliage. People in everydayclothing—skirts, trousers, day dresses—walked the “streets,” though there were no horses or automobiles she could see.
“What in Preservation’s name?” Marasi whispered. “I suppose… this is the Community they built for themselves to escape the destruction above?”
She frowned. A short time ago, she might have theorized it was designed to withstand the second ashfall, but she was now mostly certain that was a hoax. The bomb and the invading army were the true threats.
Behind them, the thing stopped scratching at the door. She wasn’t certain that was a good sign; it might have gone to get help.
“There’s something off about this entire place,” Moonlight said. She rapped on the window. “I think this is one-way glass. See the tinting? And those people in the next chamber? They don’t appear to have heard the order to quarters or the fighting. They’re too calm.”
“We could still escape in there.”
“Those twisted things will follow us,” Moonlight said. “The strain the Set has developed can track like a hound, but think almost like a person.”
“Can we fight them?” Marasi said, checking her ammo.
“I’m not… natively a soldier,” Moonlight said. “I can defend myself if I have to, but…” She seemed concerned as she glanced toward the door.
Shouts came from outside. Troops arriving.
“You have another stamp,” Marasi said. “One you said can transform you.”
“Into someone else,” she said. “Someone with a different past, different training, different… talents.”
“Canthatperson fight?”
Moonlight took a deep breath. “Yes. Better than fighting though, she should be able to vanish. Hide. But the person I would become… she wouldn’t beme.I’ve always wanted to try this specific transformation, Marasi, which is why I have the stamp. But it’s dangerous.
“This one won’t wear off as easily as the others—it will be permanent until I decide not to maintain it. And when I’m someone else, stamped like this, I don’t think the same. One of these times, I’ll change and never come back. Yet, with the jar of pure Investiture as a power source… I can try this. I can really try it.”
Moonlight dug out the stamp, then stared at it with the same air Marasi had seen in Wax when cleaning one of his guns.
“You’re telling me,” Marasi said, “that transforming yourself into another personisn’tmagic?”
Moonlight grimaced. “All right. I’ll admit those ones feel more mystical. It all makes sense if you understand the Dor…”
Marasi glanced through the window, then back at the front door. Shouts were converging outside. Rusts… it sounded like a lot of soldiers. Marasi raised her gun, then hesitated.