Machinae mundi

xxii. the contract (pt.ii)

THE AIR CRACKLED WITH POWER.

Mori saw the soft pink light bloom above them, like the gentle touch of dawn.

"Shit," he muttered.

"Just focus on the tower," Argent said.

Junot nodded, purple light sparking along her arm. "We'll hold them off."

The traveller rose to her feet as well.

Mori looked at them and nodded. He started pulling together the gears that made up the tower, restructuring it as best as he could. He couldn't rush it. But every moment he wasted here was one where the others were in danger.

Come on. Concentrate.

He forced the outside noise out, focusing on the image of the tower he'd build in his head. The gears gathered around him. The wheels slotted together, building up the tower's exterior.

After a while he realised he wasn't building from his mental image of the tower. He was still working to something — but the direction came from within him. The gears layered over each other, faster now. Stone blocks formed from nowhere and stacked to form its exterior.

Mori hardly noticed. He had light at his fingers, music in his ears. He was working to the whims of his heart, the distant melody of something intuitive he could only dance along to. Warmth spread out from his chest, fuelling his heady motions.

His pulse raced. He didn't know what was happening to him. Part of him was afraid to continue; the rest of him afraid to stop. But soon, someone stepped in front of him. And consumed by the song of the tower as he was, Mori felt it. The figure's energy scratched at his subconscious, an itch he couldn't ignore.

He frowned and opened his eyes.

Suria stood over him. Light swirled around her, teasing through her copper curls. Rose petals danced around her face. She looked almost ethereal like this, like a spirit of nature.

In the distance, Ren battled against the other three. Ren clearly had the advantage – Arkos was her home turf. It was all the toehrs could do to stand against her.

Suria stepped towards him. Her expression cut through him like a knife — a sharp, wide-eyed look of shock in her eyes. She stared at him, stunned still as if she'd been shaken to the core.

"How...how are you doing that?" she whispered.

Mori looked back at her. "I...what do you mean?"

Then he, too, glanced down at his chest. A warm light shone from beneath his shirt, like a candle flickering under his skin.

"The synchroniser?" he muttered, remembering the light that had saved him in the void. But it still lay, lifeless and half-crumbled, in his pocket. He reached up to make sure, and his hands came away empty.

So that light came from him.

Mori shook his head. "I've never..."

Suria stepped towards him, fingers outstretched.

Mori shrank away. The warmth in his chest faded away, overlain by fear. The light flickered and died, and Suria's expression slipped into panic. She reached down and grabbed his shirt and pulled him forward. "Do it again!"

"I can't!" Mori shouted back.

"What were you just doing?"

"I was — trying to fix the tower —"

"Then keep doing it," Suria said. She released his shirt, letting him drop back to the floor.

Mori looked back at her, clenching his fists. "Let Ren go first," he said. "Or I won't do it."