The explosion of Vane's Master Valve had sown chaos, but the Archduke would recover in seconds. Lyall ran, his head screaming, warm, sticky blood dripping from his nose.
He had the proof. He had barely a minute left to find the exit.
The pain was the physical recoil of his act: the use of nexium brute force. He recalled that essential lesson from Elara Finch in the days leading up to their departure from Aethelburg.
Lyall sat across from Elara, his travel gauntlet resting on the table. It was made of soft leather woven with fine brass and copper fibers.
"It's not a weapon, Lyall," Elara had told him, picking it up. "It's a sensory prosthetic. Your gift is to read the purity of nexium in the metal. This gauntlet only amplifies that reading and allows you to apply your will without the brutality of the anvil."
She then quickly sketched a diagram of the world on a wax tablet.
"What is nexium? It is the driving force of this Empire, the vital pressure. But it is not wind. It is the energy consciousness of the planet itself."
She pointed to the center of the diagram. "The Heart of the World".
"The Heart of the World is the mystical source of nexium. It is not infinite. It breathes. The Archonte's pneumatic technology is designed to harness this breath without strangling it. This is pure, stable nexium, the kind that makes Aerostats fly and our calculators work."
She then struck her finger on the edge of the tablet.
"Vane's machine, the one you saw in the forge and the one you will face? It forces the Heart's breath. It takes too quickly. This creates a discord – the nexium is no longer pure, it is twisted. This is the scream you hear in the metal. For the smith, it's a failed alignment. For the Order, it's a soul becoming necrotic."
"I hear that scream," Lyall had said. "But I can only strike it to correct it."
"Exactly. Your strength is to strike the nexium. My discipline is to caress it. But striking Vane's machine is the only thing he understands. If you use your brute force on his system, you will break it, but you will also tear yourself apart. Understand this, Lyall: your body is the channel. The force hurts you."
(Return to the Chase)
Lyall felt the truth of her words. The pain in his head was the price of the explosion he had just caused. He couldn't fight like this all the time.
He reached the conduit junction, breathless. There was no one there.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the pain, and searched for the calm amid the alarm. He didn't look for Elara with his eyes, but with his gift. He searched for Elara's stable signature, the small, invisible hiss of nexium she maintained like a beacon.
He felt a slight, tiny pocket of quietude in a vertical ventilation shaft to his right. It was the South Exit.
Lyall climbed the shaft and reached a heavy ventilation hatch riveted to the fortress roof. It was locked from the outside.
"Lyall!" Elara's voice was a panicked whisper through the vent. "I'm here! You have to force the lock from the inside; I can't manipulate it without being detected!"
Lyall looked back. Two Vane guards in black and brass uniforms appeared around the conduit's bend, drawing their compressed air pistols.
There was no more time for discipline.
Lyall placed his gauntlet on the hatch. He summoned his brute force, the smith's rage, and pushed the nexium into the rivets. The pain tore at his nose and head. The nexium screamed, no longer the pump's, but his own.
CRACK!
The hatch rivets burst into shrapnel. Lyall fell onto the roof, his nose dripping blood.
"Hold on!"
The allied civilian Aerostat was already speeding past above them. Lyall saw Elara launch the Pneumatic Grappling Hook with surgical precision, the anchor sinking into the airship's belly.
They swung out just as Vane's guards' shots tore through the air. Suspended above the Domain of Cinders, they escaped the fortress's range, Lyall at the edge of consciousness, the price of his success paid in blood and pain.