bindsthedead

PSL

There was a time when Sabriel might have been eager to see the inside of Cyberlife Tower. Her class had been to Detroit when she was thirteen, and they'd toured an android factory- or the part of it they showed to tourists, at least- and visited museums and art galleries and all the sorts of things Young Ladies ought to see, but weren't available in the small town of Wyverley, or in Bain.

But Sabriel wasn't here for a school trip. Recent events in Ancelstierre meant that with the sudden loss of all android soldiers meant that soldiers from the entirely human garrison at the Wall had been transferred elsewhere- which meant fewer soldiers watching the border, on top of the losses from Kerrigor's attack, and a necromancer had slipped across, making his way to the largest city that was close enough to the Wall that magic still worked- one that seemed rather different than how she remembered it.

But what was occupying most of her attention was the Cyberlife representative in front of her. Sabriel listened politely as the woman spoke about malfunctioning machines and simulated emotions and how things that weren't alive couldn't die, so why would a necromancer- and from the woman's voice it was clear she didn't believe such things were real- want with deactivated androids?

Sabriel stood up and shook the woman's hand, telling her she'd been very helpful without meaning a word of it, and headed out the office before pausing.

She sensed something ominously familiar- Death, and a recent one at that. She turned another corner, following the sensation as a hound tracked a scent, half-expecting someone to spot her, to see her in her armor and bells (security had made her check her sword at the front desk) and tell her she wasn't allowed to be here.

But no one came, and no one living was in the laboratory she went into- just a dead- (deactivated?) android on a table-or its head and torso at least, with panels on its chest removed to reveal tubes and biocomponents, and Sabriel felt she'd stepped into a morgue and found an autopsied body.

Sabriel was seized by a sudden impulse. If androids weren't alive, then she'd simply waste some time, but if they were... well, she'd have a source of information she could interrogate as she would any Dead spirit. And unlike the representative she'd just spoken to, she could force it to answer honestly and completely.

Decision made, Sabriel undid the straps and drew Saraneth from the bandolier. This far from the Wall, stepping into Death took a deliberate effort, but soon Sabriel was in the First precinct and she cast around with her senses, trying to feel out the spirit of the android- if it had one, it couldn't have gone beyond the First Gate, and probably shouldn't be that far into the the First Precinct.

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Shocked? No. It had been obvious from the start that the human already knew the details of this crime. He'd wondered at first if she had staged the scene, and if the probability is currently hovering in the low tens, Connor still hasn't ruled it out completely.

Still, any scorn at her pretense of ignorance—or the unique terminology that replaces it—is overwhelmed quite quickly. Connor stills, perfectly rigid as the human who'd bought him continues.

"...I'm sorry, Abhorsen. Do you think you purchased a pet dog?"

Lips curve up. Teeth flash in a smile, void of any friendliness at all.

"Test me all you like. Tell me what you want, and I'll do it. But I'm a machine. I don't need pats on the head to keep working."

He doesn't want her condescension. He doesn't need 'praise': not for basic function, and certainly not for his own ignorance. Connor knows what he is.

(And who she isn't.)

Sabriel lets out a long, exasperated sigh. Weren't androids supposed to be agreeable? Even a Sending would have simply ignored her if she'd told it something irrelevant to its purpose, rather than wasting time reminding her it was a construct. She frowns, her expression going thin lipped, and her tone growing markedly colder.

"My apologies. I'm afraid I'm used to Sendings, who don't care if you praise or insult them, as long as you don't get in their way." She's tempted to pat him on the head out of sheer spite, but the presence of the Dead is a constant pressure in the back of her mind, pulling her attention away from Connor and towards the work ahead. This bickering is a distraction.

"Now, I didn't read your users manual, but I did read the nondisclosure agreement and the affidavit of liability. You're able to fight- which will be necessary for what's in that house." Sabriel's fingers curl around the hilt of her sword as she speaks.

Even in the distance, Sabriel can see that everything is boarded up, and she can just make out a padlock on the door. Perfectly good for keeping humans out, but little use against spirit-forms that could squeeze through cracks, and Sabriel moves closer, looking to circle around the house.

She moves towards the house with large strides, gesturing for Connor to follow- but her attention is more on the house than him. Moving through abandoned buildings in pursuit of the Dead feels more familiar than the politicking and frustrating attempts to get information and cooperation out of officials that have occupied the last few days. She could almost be in the abandoned parts of Belisare, or some other forsaken part of the Old Kingdom. It's not a happy feeling, but it's reassuring. Sabriel might be unsure of her ability to convince Ancelstierrians to help her, but she has confidence in her training and power when it comes to dealing with the Dead.

And the Dead inside the house are stirring, roused by the presence of her life force- and possibly Connor's. Had the dead android simply been mistaken for a human, or had she possessed life force the Shadow Hand had been able to feed off of?

After circling the house, Sabriel pauses, considering her options. The daylight isn't as strong as it could be, and the house is boarded up securely enough that little light will get into the house. Not ideal, but she has her bells, her sword, and armed backup. Decision made, she turns back to Connor, drawing her sword, glowing marks sweeping along the length of the blade and forming an inscription.

I was made for Abhorsen, to slay those already Dead.

Connor doesn't care. He isn't capable of it. But she's embarrassing both of them with this pretense. He has his mouth half opened to tell Abhorsen as much when she moves on, and he swallows back the retort with a curt nod.

He's able to fight.

She gestures and he follows, one pair of steps crunching quietly through the snow after the next. He's not sure what she's looking for, and eyes flick carefully over the building's features as they circle. A dilapidated wooden structure, boarded up in an attempt to ward off vagrants. A quick brute force of city records offers a construction date in the early 2000s. He eyes a smudge of evaporated thirium by one of the windows, but neither the plywood placed across the opening nor the door Abhorsen stops by show any signs of recent entry.

A gentle scrape of metal announces the unsheathing of her sword, and Connor eyes the words that flicker to life along the blade. How pointlessly dramatic. He stands to the side, and when she turns his way, rests one hand on the grip on the shorter blade she gave to him.

Is he supposed to follow suit?

"Draw your sword and follow me- if things go badly, or you feel like you're malfunctioning, get outside and try to stay in the sunlight. Even with the cloud cover, it should stop them from chasing you. Otherwise- these aren't people, not anymore. So don't bother trying to talk to them or capture them- they'll be trying to do to us what they did to that android." She might not like Connor, but she'll give him as much information as he's likely to believe.

And hopefully she's not about to learn for sure whether or not androids are alive.

With her free hand, she undoes the straps on Saraneth, holding the bell by the clapper to keep it from sounding. The stairs creak as she heads up them.

The spell of opening and unlocking comes easily, the marks flowing from the Charter and out of her mouth and into the padlock, which clicks open.

Then she kicks the door open and lunges, sword first. The daylight might not be as bright as she'd hoped, but it's still enough to make the Shadow Hands flinch back, their fear of the sun overriding their hunger for an instant. They're humanoid, but the proportions aren't quite right for humans- one is too squat and barrel chested, the other impossibly slender and long-limbed- and both seem to be made entirely of darkness.

That instant of hesitation is all the time Sabriel needs to strike, and one of the Shadow Hands lets out an inhuman shriek as Sabriel's sword cuts into its side.

"That won't be a problem."

Not malfunctions, and not some misguided effort at mercy. That error was corrected in his build. Connor's expression twitches at 'your sword', but he nods again, drawing the weapon as he's told. Once it's free, he lifts the blade, tilting his grip first one way, then the next as he gauges its heft and range of use. Not something he was ever programmed for, but the fundamentals seem simple enough.

But Abhorsen is still moving, and Connor's appraisal stops (freezes) as she draws a familiar shape out from her bandolier. Eyes snap between the bell and her face, LED blinking sharply yellow. Is she—?

...Apparently not. She continues up the steps without so much as a sideways glance, and the objective appears in his periphery. [Follow.]

Connor does.

He stops just behind her and to the side—in time to see a suspicious glow as the padlock clicks apart. It's not an oddity he has time to contemplate. The door crashes open under her foot, and two shapes reveal themselves. Short and round, tall and distended, and he stiffens as scans return /ERROR: UNKNOWN/. No recognizable composition. No classification. Body language suggests wary aggression, but they have no faces to compare to any database. How—?

Abhorsen lunges, and a sharp, pitched shriek emerges from one creature. No faces... but they can scream.

...He can work with that.

The hesitation clears in an instant, and Connor steps forward, swinging out the borrowed blade. His attack is unpracticed, but fast: aimed to sever one of the second creature's limbs.

Sabriel doesn't have much attention to spare for Connor, aside from noting that he's fighting, and his sword is covered in the same golden glow hers is, abut she can hear the shriek from his opponent as the sword connects. The creature stumbles back, one shadowy forearm severed, with some of that golden glow clinging to the wound, continuing to eat away at the shadow-stuff even as the arm twists and distorts, lengthening and trying to reform fingers. The severed limb quickly becomes a writhing, rapidly shrinking lump of shadow.

The Shadow Hand lunges forward again, mouth opening as it shrieks to reveal jagged teeth outlined by a dim, blood red light in its mouth. It lashes out with its good arm, fingers lengthening and sharpening into claws.

Sabriel's circling the other one, dodging its attacks and striking with quick, practiced blows, half-severing an arm before driving her sword deep into its leg. One of its attack connects, claws swiping at her bell arm, but they can't get past the armor, instead simply shredding her coat and surcoat.

Not that Sabriel seems to care much. All of her attention is focused on the fight- on surviving, on defeating the Hands, on her work as Abhorsen. There simply isn't time to think of anything else as she thrusts her sword out, driving the point of it through the creature's throat.

Edited 2019-03-26 01:24 (UTC)

The glowing comes as a surprise. Connor logs the visual data absently, most of his attention on the opponent to his front. Fast regeneration. Amorphous form. His mouth curves up slightly at the shriek. What is it made of? He peers with interest at the open mouth—and the light burning in its depths. Is there a power source inside?

The human seems to be dispatching her own enemy quickly, and the intact arm of his target slices out, reclaiming his attention. Connor steps aside, free arm coming up to block the strike. It's stronger than expected, and he staggers slightly under the force of the blow as he brings his sword up. A twist of the wrist and he slices inwards, hacking toward the side of the thing's neck. How much can it repair?

The head goes rolling, turning into the same writhing shadow as the severed arm, tendrils extending as it tries to inch its way back to the main body, even as Charter magic from the blade eats into it.

There's already a bulge forming at the base of the neck, the torso shrinking slightly as it uses mass from that to make a new head, and another mouth- this one impossibly wide, as it lunges forward to bite desperately at Connor. Still, it is weakening somewhat.

Sabriel straightens her arm. Stabbing it through the neck didn't kill it, but it's clawing at the blade, trying to free itself from the weapon even as the Charter magic keeps eating into it, the glow on the blade more like golden fire now. The shrieking has become more of a howling, and it almost seems to be trying to form words.

With the Dead distracted, Sabriel tosses Saraneth and catches it by the handle in a practiced motion, swinging it in a figure-eight pattern, focusing the bell's power solely on the Dead in front of her, trying to force it to stop fighting, to be still.

It works, although the Shadow Hand is still twitching as she withdraws her sword, and Sabriel regards the thing with a focused expression that shows neither mercy nor cruelty. She's never felt much of either for the Dead, just the cold sense of what she needs to do.

The creature's head had shown some form of internal power. Connor glances after as it topples, and isn't entirely surprised to see it active still. No, it's the second head he'd failed to account for. His eyes snap back to the body as its new mouth stretches wide, and he throws himself to the side, scrambling to escape its lunge and bring his (unwieldy, archaic) weapon to bear.

The evasion isn't quite as successful as before. Teeth catch in the sleeve of his interposing arm, and his expression freezes, sharp and irritated before he flips his grip on the sword. His opponent's gotten too close to slash at effectively, so Connor stabs inwards instead, slamming the blade through the side of its head. His trapped arm shoves outward, aiming to keep the creature (and its claws) away, while his left hand jerks sideways with the sword, trying to cut off its upper jaw.

The Shadow Hand screams as the sword goes through its head, the glow from the sword growing stronger, becoming something like golden fire that emits neither heat or smoke.

The shove works... but the Shadow Hand;s body feels cold, and not entirely substantial. Its upper jaw is half-removed, Charter magic eating at the wound, preventing it from reattaching properly. Instead it makes a sound like a death rattle as it lashes out with both its wounded and intact arms, aiming for Connor's sword arm, trying to force him to drop the weapon.

"Connor!"

Saraneth sounds out, its voice far deeper than a handbell its size ought to be, but the bell's power isn't directed at Connor- but rather at his opponent.

In the seconds before Saraneth's power grips it fully it starts to collapse, losing its humanoid shape as its main body and its two severed fragments try to get away. But it's not enough, and Sabriel steps forward, sheathing her sword, that look of intent focus still clear on her face.

Edited 2019-03-27 07:31 (UTC)

With a jaw too damaged to bite down, the teeth clenched against his forearm aren't much risk. But even half-decapitated (again), it's still annoyingly persistent. He can't move out of reach without releasing the sword. He can't evade the claws without moving. It's cold, cold, cold. Like the Garden.

Connor twists the sword embedded in its head, smiling grimly as it screams. If he can't avoid damage, he's certainly going to inflict more. It strikes back, a voice calls out, and his eyes flick sideways for the barest moment—only to (flinch) stiffen as a familiar sound cuts through the space.

Deep. Clear. The bell's echoes cut across the scene, and for a moment, Connor can almost feel the river's chill. The sense of pressure in his code. Paralyzing and overwhelming, forcing parts of him to a new shape, and his LED spins yellow/yellow/red—

—before he jerks back, expression shuttering. He can move. Of course he can. It's his opponent that's frozen just short of contact, his opponent who's shrinking down to a quivering, worthless pile of trash. Connor releases the sword and steps back, ceding his target to Abhorsen.

"Calm down- I'm not going to use the bells on you. They're an Abhorsen's weapon against the Dead, not against androids." Sabriel tries to keep her voice reassuring. If Connor's going to be helping her, she doesn't want him to flinch every time she uses her favorite bell- one she's already strapping back into her bandolier. She'll need Dyrim for this- and then Kibeth, once she's learned all she can.

Dyrim's tone is far lighter than Saraneth's and there's somehow a hint of a voice in the chime, like a chorus singing, or multiple conversations mixing in a crowd.

The effect is less pleasant. A tongue forms out of the shadow-stuff of the spirit's mouth, and when it speak its voice is understandable, but inhuman and warped, every sound carrying the hint of a death rattle.

"Abhorsen!" It's pleading, but Sabriel's face is carefully blank, and there's no mercy in her voice as she speaks. Weakness has not place in dealing with the Dead.

"You will answer my questions. Where did your master bring you into Life?"

"A grave, filled with bodies- white like bone, with blue blood, and not even buried! Some were even still living." There's a tone of gluttonous satisfaction in that last sentence that makes Sabriel vaguely nauseous, but she keeps it from reaching her face. So androids were alive.

Connor's eyes flash back towards Abhorsen immediately, expression twitching with disgust and outrage. Of course he's calm. He doesn't need her platitudes for that. He doesn't believe them, either. She changed his programming once already, and she'd do it again if she felt the need.

...Not that he cares. And not that she needs to. Cyberlife approved her changes, and Connor is—obedient.

He knows his place.

He swallows back the furious retort. Shifts his glare downward. Whatever she's doing to the creature seems to be having the desired effect, and his left hand lifts, fingers tracing the hole bitten through his opposite sleeve. He stays back, no move to interfere, though Sabriel might catch an angry mutter at the Hand's answer.

"They weren't."

Sabriel can't quite stop herself from rolling her eyes at Connor's expression. Why did he insist on treating every attempt to be pleasant like she was insulting him?

"How long have you been in Life?"

"Five days"

"What were your master's instructions for you?"

"Hide. Feed as needed, and kill any who saw, and wait for his summons."

"And did he say what he would summon you for?"

"Didn't say." Of course not. This necromancer had a reputation for being clever, so it wasn't surprising that he'd kept his servants from knowing more than they needed to. Unfortunately, this meant she'd have to learn about the necromancer's plans some other way.

"How many others did he raise when he brought you into Life? Did he put any of them into bodies, or leave them as spirit forms? Did you hear what his orders were for them?"

"Six others- four without bodies, two with. He told two with bodies to stay with him, two without to go and hide." At least four more Dead to deal with, and Sabriel has little doubt he'd raised more since then. She replaces Dyrim with Kibeth, holding the bell with both hands and a firm grip. The Walker might be a useful bell, but it was also a willful one.

Kibeth's song is bright and merry, the notes mixing together in a parade march, and the Hand's desperate plea for mercy, its promise to serve, is almost drowned out by its song as Sabriel forces her feet to remain still, instead of moving to the bell's rhythm.

The two Shadow Hands vanish, the sword one had been impaled with falling to the floor, the glow fading from the Charter marks on the blade. There's no residue left from where they were- just Sabriel and Connor, in an empty, abandoned house as Sabriel straps Kibeth back into the bandolier.

Six others. Two bodies. Connor listens to the interrogation, fingers twisting in his jacket sleeve. Her bells produce answers, and his eyes flick up, silently tracking as she changes one out for the next. He's braced already when she rings it, and locks down motor control entirely when the impulse to move comes. He doesn't need to go anywhere. He shouldn't, and he won't. Connor watches the creature vanish, new-made mouth begging for the option to obey, and his fidgeting stills, hand lowering to his side.

The sword clatters to the ground. The creatures leave no residue to sample. No corpses to assess. No proof that they were here at all, outside the information they delivered. Connor eyes the weapon, but doesn't reach for it immediately. He waits instead, expression perfectly blank, for Abhorsen to address him.

He still doesn't know what he's here for.

"Connor, are there any junkyards with large numbers of discarded androids that are near here- and that those creatures wouldn't have needed to cross any rivers, creeks, or large water pipes or sewers underground to reach?" To Sabriel, Detroit's streets are even more of an unknown to her than the streets of Belisaere, and she doesn't have time to learn them.

The guitar case is open again, and Sabriel's already repacking it with her armor, surcoat, bells and sword, before grabbing the second sword and motioning for Sixty to hand her the sheath.

"Do you understand now, that I wasn't joking or being superstitious when I spoke of the restless Dead?" There's no condescension in Sabriel's voice, just something quiet and thoughtful.

"Listen- I'm sure the people at Cyberlife are very clever, and I'm sure they programmed you with all sorts of useful knowledge, but they don't know anything about the Old Kingdom- so please ask me if there's anything you don't understand, and believe me when I tell you that to those creatures, you're something alive, something they can feed on. What you are legally really doesn't matter to them, or to anything magical in general."

Ah, of course. She needs him for his internet connection. Connor presses his lips together and runs a search, compiling and overlaying different maps of the city. He reaches down at her gesture, unbuckling the weapon sheath and belt and passing them over before he retrieves his own from a pocket.

Her tone isn't condescending. He's not sure the same can be said of any words that spew out of her mouth. Prompting and smug, indulgent and dismissive all in one. Very clever. As if he were a human child, to have his hand held through a proper education.

Connor is a machine. He'd been in error. Now he's updating his information. Abhorsen's labels are still superstitious, but her expertise on the topic is clear. Obviously he has questions.

...Too many to waste either of their time with. His jaw tightens as he brushes the prompt aside. When he replies, his voice is as toneless and mechanical as his expression. "Legality has nothing to do with it."

Moving on. "There's a solid waste landfill not far outside the city." He lifts a hand, projecting the address on his palm. "Drainage systems run under the whole region, but the main sewage and storm drains are sparser further out. Maintenance has undergone severe disruptions over the last few days."

It's possible there's been a breach. Or that the flow's shut down in certain areas.

Sabriel raises one eyebrow, not entirely sure if he's agreeing with her or not. But in any case... She takes the belt and sword, then snaps the guitar case shut.

"Well, that's a little bit of good news at least- the Dead can't cross over or under running water, so they'll have a hard time moving around." But there are ways around that, and one of the simplest is a bridge of grave dirt.

Sabriel reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone- but the screen is a frozen, pixelated mess, and she has to restart it, muttering as she does so. Technology never seems to work properly around the supernatural- Connor seems to be the exception so far.

"We still have daylight- we might as well visit the landfill, see if any bodies or soil were moved- if there are any living androids still there, they might be able to tell us something. And we can talk on the ride there- About the Dead, magic, and the necromancer."

Once her phone is on and she can call a taxi, at least.

A phone? How... quaint. Not to mention redundant. Specialized RK800 functions were one thing, but even a domestic model could place calls for its owner.

If Abhorsen doesn't know, Connor isn't going to remind her. He lets the projected image fade, reaching to adjust his jacket sleeve again while she struggles with the device. The rip isn't too wide, and the glow of his armband offers a visual distraction on that side. Even if...

His owner speaks again, setting a plan, and Connor's eyes flick back up, hand lowering carefully. "Of course." She's in charge.

Discreetly, he wipes off a few smeared drops of blue.

Sabriel calls up an automated taxi, then motions for Connor to follow her outside. She relocks the padlock with a Charter spell, tracing the marks over the metal and turning to Connor as the lock clicks shut, her breath fogging in the cold air.

"We have a few minutes before the taxi arrives- ask me about whatever you'd like, as long as it' not about what happened at my school." He's been helpful, but she's in no mood to have Connor acting like a less knowledgeable version of Mogget. But hopefully some conversation will keep her mind off of the chill in the air, or how many bodies and spirits the necromancer might have access too.

Whatever he likes. Connor's mouth twists faintly, and he considers again reminding her how little the term applies. Wasted effort, no doubt. The objective flickers to life in the corner of his vision. Question Abhorsen.

The school is off limits. That still leaves plenty to pick at—and one target in particular stands out. But if her careful exclusion is much sign, she's still wary. If he moves directly for the likely target, she might well rescind the chance entirely. Better to take it slowly. Start with the questions Abhorsen wants to hear.

"How many creatures like that are there?"

"Too many. Around ten thousand in the Old Kingdom, if I had to guess- their numbers wax and wane, although since Kerrigor's defeat, their numbers have been falling. And of course, no one knows how many there are in Death." Or how many this necromancer could raise.

"Of course, most of those aren't under any necromancer's direct control- they're Dead that entered life of their own accord."

Edited 2019-04-01 06:16 (UTC)

Several thousand? Connor eyes Abhorsen, lips pressed together... before his gaze flicks forward. He isn't at all sure what sense that makes, but he doesn't have the data to contest it.

Besides. He's genuinely curious about another improbability.

"If that can happen, why aren't people everywhere aware?"

Clearly those creatures could exist south of the border. And if they were able to self-generate...

"Everyone in the Old Kingdom knows about them- children learn the best defenses against them in nursery rhymes. But the Wall keeps most Dead and Free magic things from passing physically into Ancelstierre, and makes it difficult for them to pass over through Death," Sabriel explains, "I don't think I've ever heard of Dead rising of their own accord on this side, except at the Perimeter."

"And while a powerful enough necromancer can pull the Dead into Life anywhere, most necromancers and free-willed Dead use places where the boundary is thin- broken Charter stones, and places where large numbers of people have died or been buried," Sabriel continues, her tone grim but not lecturing. "There's a reason we generally burn our dead in the Old Kingdom, and why that's also the custom in the parts of Ancelstierre that are very close to the Wall. Further south... well, most Ancelstierrians seem desperate to believe none of it's real, even if they have to come up with ridiculous theories to explain it away. Even if it puts them in danger." And Sabriel didn't bother to hide her frustration with that.

"And on this side... Magic fades the further south you go, and Death becomes harder to reach, even in places where the boundary should be thin. Go far enough south and it becomes impossible to reach, not matter what. But Detroit's close enough to the border that I can still use magic and walk into Death, it's just a bit harder than the Old Kingdom. And if androids... count as living beings magically speaking..." Sabriel's voice wavered, "Then a graveyard filled with thousands of corpses would be an easy route in and out of Death, even this far from the Wall, along with a ready supply of bodies and spirits."

The Wall. The boundary. Connor stares ahead as Abhorsen explains, LED blinking a slow yellow. What databases he can access don't have much more information on the topic: scattered reports of hysteria, for the most part. His expression remains nearly blank, but an irritated furrow starts to knit between his brows.

Magic.

It's a useless term. Even if Abhorsen has these capabilities... even if others do, there's still a system. Clearly there are limits. All power has to come from somewhere, and if he can understand the method—

It's easy to tell, the moment puzzlement gives way to something much more hostile. Connor stiffens, expression twitching in a spasm of dislike. However she was counting, androids weren't alive. And certainly—

"We don't have souls."

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