The wind howling past the skiff didn't smell like air anymore. It smelled like dry rot and pulverized bone.
Julian crouched over the exposed engine block, his body acting as a living spark plug. His right hand was welded to the copper casing by a bridge of crackling blue energy. Every piston stroke—thud-thud-thud—was a hammer blow to his nervous system. He wasn't just powering the machine; he was feeling it. He felt the friction of the axles, the heat of the bearings, the desperate spin of the flywheel.
"How are you holding up?" Lyra shouted over the roar of the wheels, her hands white-knuckled on the steering lever.
"I feel like... I'm running a marathon... while holding my breath," Julian gritted out, sweat stinging his eyes. "How much further?"
"The tracks are straight," Lyra yelled back, squinting into the infinite gloom ahead. "But the tunnel is changing. Look at the walls."
Julian risked a glance sideways. The smooth, bored stone of the tunnel was gone. The walls were now jagged, riddled with thousands of holes like a chaotic honeycomb.
And from those holes, a sound was emerging.
It wasn't the mechanical rhythm of the train. It was a wet, skittering noise. Click-hiss. Click-hiss.
"Lyra..." Julian warned, the hair on his arms standing up—not from the resonance, but from instinct.
"I hear it," she snapped. She pulled a flare from her belt—one of the few items she'd salvaged. She struck it against the metal dashboard.
FZZZT.
A harsh, red light flooded the tunnel.
Julian gasped. The connection to the engine wavered, the skiff lurching as the power dipped.
The walls were moving.
They weren't rocks. They were creatures. Hundreds of them. Pale, translucent things the size of large dogs, with too many limbs and skin that looked like wet limestone. They had no eyes, just gaping, circular mouths lined with rows of crystalline teeth.
"Silica-Stalkers!" Lyra screamed. "Don't stop! Keep the resonance flowing!"
"They're fast!" Julian yelled, forcing his hand back down, pouring more will into the copper. The engine roared in protest, the skiff surging forward.
But the Stalkers were faster. They didn't run on the ground; they flowed along the walls and ceiling, defying gravity with hooked claws that sparked against the stone. They were swarming, drawn to the vibration, drawn to the blue light of Julian's hand like moths to a lethal flame.
SCREECH!
One of the creatures dropped from the ceiling.
It landed with a heavy thud on the rear deck of the skiff, inches behind Julian.
Up close, it was hideous. It smelled of sulfur. Its circular maw opened, revealing a throat that pulsed with a dull, hungry grey light. It raised a claw to strike at Julian's exposed back.
"Down!"
Lyra abandoned the steering lever. She vaulted over the engine block, her knife flashing in the red flare light.
She didn't stab the creature's body—it looked armored, plated with rock. She drove the knife straight into the soft, pulsing tissue of its open mouth.
SQUELCH.
The creature shrieked—a sound like grinding glass. It thrashed, its claws gouging deep grooves into the metal deck. Lyra kicked it hard in the thorax, sending it tumbling off the back of the speeding skiff. It hit the tracks and vanished under the wheels in a spray of pale gore.
"Drive!" Lyra yelled, scrambling back to the controls as the skiff began to drift toward the tunnel wall.
"There's more!" Julian shouted.
Three more Stalkers dropped. Two hit the tracks and were left behind, but one landed on the front of the skiff, right on the cowling.
It lunged at Lyra, its claws swiping at her face. She ducked, the claw shredding the shoulder of her cloak.
"I can't fight and steer!" she screamed, grappling with the monster's slick, rocky limbs.
Julian looked at the engine. If he let go, they stopped. If they stopped, the swarm on the walls would bury them in seconds.
I need to do both.
"Hold the wheel!" Julian roared.
He didn't let go of the engine with his crystal hand. Instead, he reached out with his mind.
He felt the vibration of the skiff. He felt the frantic heartbeat of the creature attacking Lyra. He felt the rigid structure of its exoskeleton.
Shatter.
He didn't send a wave of energy. He sent a spike of dissonance directly into the creature's chest plate.
CRACK-BOOM.
The Stalker's chest didn't just break; it detonated. The exoskeleton couldn't handle the sudden vibrational overload. The creature exploded outward in a shower of rock shards and slime.
Lyra wiped the gore from her face, breathing hard. "Nice shot!"
"I'm draining fast!" Julian warned. The blue light in his hand was flickering. His vision was blurring at the edges. "I can't keep this speed up!"
"We don't need to keep it up forever," Lyra pointed ahead. "Look!"
Far ahead, the darkness ended. A wall of swirling, milky-white mist blocked the tunnel. It wasn't just fog; it was a physical barrier, swirling violently.
"The Fog Gate!" Lyra yelled. "It marks the end of the subterranean pressure zone!"
"Is it safe?"
"No! It's highly pressurized steam and Aether fallout! Brace yourself!"
Behind them, the swarm of Stalkers screeched in frustration. They stopped pursuing as the skiff neared the mist. They feared the Fog.
Julian didn't slow down. He couldn't. He poured the last drop of his energy into the engine. The skiff hit top speed, the wheels screaming.
"Hold your breath!" Lyra commanded, pulling her cloak over her face.
Julian took a massive gulp of the dry tunnel air. He squeezed his eyes shut.
The skiff slammed into the white wall.
WHAM.
The world turned white. The sound changed instantly from the echo of a tunnel to the muffled, dead silence of dense vapor. The air pressure spiked, popping Julian's ears. Heat washed over them, wet and suffocating.
They were flying blind.
Then, just as quickly, they punched through.
The whiteness vanished. The air cleared.
The skiff flew out of the tunnel mouth, airborne for a terrifying second, before slamming down onto rusted tracks that ran across a vast, twilight plain.
The engine sputtered and died. Julian's hand slipped from the casing, the blue light extinguishing.
The skiff coasted to a halt, the wheels grinding against the rusty rails.
Julian slumped forward, gasping for air. "Did... did we lose them?"
Lyra stood up slowly. She didn't look back at the tunnel. She looked forward. Her eyes were wide.
"Julian," she whispered. "Look."
Julian raised his head.
They weren't in a wasteland.
They were in a graveyard.
Stretching out to the horizon, under a sky of bruised purple clouds, were the skeletons of airships. Thousands of them. Massive, rotting hulks of iron and canvas, piled on top of each other like mountains of trash. And weaving between them, the tracks continued.
"The Scrapyard of the Gods," Lyra breathed. "I thought it was a myth."
Julian looked at the endless sea of dead machines. His crystal hand twitched, not with pain, but with recognition.
Home, the voice in the back of his mind whispered. Parts.