Chapter 4 - The Lie That Built Greyhaven
The staircase beneath the archive descended farther than Greyhaven should have allowed.
Eli counted one hundred and twelve steps before giving up.
Rook carried a lantern.
Mara had been ordered to stay behind.
She had responded with language that made Commander Rook visibly reconsider several assumptions about bakers.
She came anyway.
At the bottom they found a tunnel.
Its walls weren't stone.
Metal ran through them.
Ancient pipes.
Gears.
Channels.
The city had been built on top of a machine.
"Nobody knows this exists?" Eli whispered.
"Somebody does," Rook replied.
Torches appeared ahead.
Soldiers.
Vey.
He had found another entrance.
"Thank you for opening the way," the chancellor said.
Rook drew his sword.
Twenty rifles aimed at him.
"Don't."
Eli looked at Vey.
"You killed Jonas."
"No."
"Your men did."
"They were searching his archive."
"That's a fancy way of saying it."
Vey's face hardened.
"You think your mother was protecting this city?"
"Yes."
"She condemned it."
He ordered a guard to bring forward a document.
It described the Covenant Engine.
Not a weapon.
A source of power.
Enough to heat homes.
Move machines.
Pump water.
Transform Greyhaven.
"The Keepers buried technology that could have ended hunger generations ago," Vey said.
Eli hesitated.
That wasn't what he expected.
"Why?"
"Because power frightens small-minded people."
Rook interrupted.
"Read the final page."
Vey said nothing.
"Read it."
Eli took the document.
The Engine could provide enormous power.
But the Heart responded to a living Keeper.
Control the Keeper—
control the Engine.
And once permanently bound, the Engine could affect more than machines.
It could control every connected mechanism throughout Greyhaven.
Water.
Gates.
Furnaces.
Weapons.
Everything.
One ruler could hold an entire city hostage.
Eli looked at Vey.
"That's what you want."
"I want order."
"You want obedience."
"Sometimes they are the same."
"No."
The word surprised even Eli.
Vey smiled.
"You're thirteen."
"And you're scared of me."
That erased the smile.
Vey ordered the guards forward.
Rook attacked.
Chaos exploded.
Mara grabbed Eli.
They ran.
Rook fought three men at once.
Eli reached a circular chamber.
At its center stood the Heart mechanism.
His brass artifact had emerged from a channel and now floated inside a framework of spinning rings.
Golden light filled the room.
Vey entered behind them.
"Take the boy."
Eli ran toward the machine.
The rings accelerated.
A voice filled the chamber.
Not human.
Mechanical.
KEEPER RECOGNIZED.
Vey stopped.
Eli stared.
STATE COMMAND.
Vey whispered, "Do it."
"Do what?"
"Bind it."
"No."
"You could save thousands."
"By giving it to you?"
"By controlling it yourself."
That temptation hit harder.
Eli imagined never being hungry.
Nobody hungry.
Warm houses.
Clean water.
He could fix everything.
Then he remembered his mother.
The Keepers were never rulers.
They were guardians.
Eli stepped backward.
"I won't."
Vey's expression changed.
"Then I'll make you."
A guard seized Mara.
Blade against her throat.
Eli froze.
Vey approached.
"Bind the Engine."
Mara shouted, "Don't!"
Eli looked at her.
Then at the machine.
Then at Rook, bleeding in the doorway.
He had one choice.
Except suddenly he noticed something.
His mother's symbol wasn't a tree.
Everyone had misunderstood it.
The branches and roots were identical.
It was a mirror.
Balance.
Power above.
Restraint below.
Eli placed his hand against the machine.
"State command," Vey whispered.
Eli closed his eyes.
"Open everything."
Vey smiled.
May you like
Then the floor disappeared beneath him.
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