Borrowed Levels

Chapter 7: What the Bank Built

The word hung in the air between them.

Aldric Calder was alive.

He wore the same coat, the same ragged beard, the same worn boots Ren remembered from childhood. But something was wrong with his eyes. They flickered, as if there were two people behind them and only one was allowed to speak at a time.

"Dad. Dad, it's me. It's Ren."

The Collector's hand trembled. The heavy book clutched in the other hand began to glow, and the silver light spread up his arm like frost.

"Can't..." The voice rasped. "The debt. It makes me. Run, Ren, run now..."

Then the light swallowed his face, and the smooth white plate re-formed over his skin, and the Collector straightened. The hand that had been trembling swung back, ready to strike.

Someone clapped.

The sound echoed through the cavern, slow and mocking. Ren turned his head.

Director Voss stood at the cavern's entrance, flanked by a dozen armed Bank enforcers in gray armor. He was smiling.

"Marvelous," he said. "Aldric always did put up more resistance than the others."

"You," Ren said hoarsely.

"Me." Voss stepped forward, his shoes tapping lightly on the stone. "I would have preferred to explain this over tea. But you left me no choice."

He gestured at the Collector, who stood very still beside Ren now, as obedient as a hound.

"The Ledger is not a gift, Mr. Calder. It is a tool. A very old one, and a very necessary one. Long before the Bank, there was a god in the deep, imprisoned beneath this city. Its power leaks. It always has. Ordinary men cannot touch it. But a few are born who can borrow it, a little at a time, through the Ledger." Voss's eyes gleamed. "We call them holders."

Ren stared at him.

"The Bank was built to harvest them. Every holder is allowed to borrow. Every holder believes he is escaping his debt. But the interest compounds, and at the end, the holder is collected, and everything he has borrowed flows back into the vault." Voss tilted his head. "Into the god. Where we siphon it, and sell it, as levels."

"My father..."

"Has served the Bank for six years. The Collector is not a monster, Mr. Calder. It is a defaulted holder, bound to the account. Each one hunts the next." Voss almost sounded regretful. "It is efficient."

Ren's whole body was shaking. Behind him, Dara was dragging Pip to her feet. Hesk was struggling to rise.

"You murdered him."

"I preserved him. A subtle difference."

"And my debt?"

"A fiction. Every loan we sell is a fiction." Voss waved a hand. "Everyone borrows from the Bank because they believe the power must be paid for. That belief keeps the god fed."

It was the most horrifying thing Ren had ever heard, and the worst part was how calmly it was said.

"There is one more thing," Voss added. "Your sister."

The cavern seemed to go cold.

"Mira has been bonded to the god since birth. The cough, the fevers. It is not an illness. It is a connection. She hears it, doesn't she? She has since she was small." Voss's voice softened. "She is the next vessel. When the current anchor fails, she will take its place."

"You touch her and I'll kill you."

"I do not need to touch her. I simply need you to surrender the Ledger." Voss spread his hands. "Give it up, Mr. Calder. And she lives, whole and healthy, free of the god. Refuse, and the Collector takes you, and your sister takes your place."

Ren looked at his father. At the white plate over his face, at the silver book in his hand.

He had spent six years mourning a man who was standing in front of him.

"No," he said.

Voss sighed. "Take them."

The enforcers raised their weapons.

Ren did the only thing he could think of. He drove his fist into the cavern floor, with the last of the stone skin and the last scrap of borrowed strength, and brought the roof down on all of them.

The tunnel collapsed in a roar of dust and falling stone. Ren grabbed Pip, Dara pulled Hesk, and they ran, through the blackness and the choking air, up twelve floors without stopping. Behind them, Voss's calm voice carried through the rubble.

"Let them go. The boy will come back to me."

They burst out of the Gullet at midnight, bleeding and coughing. Ren sprinted through the streets with the moonvein root clutched in his fist and kicked in the door of the flat.

Bram lay on the floor, unconscious. The window was open. The bed was empty.

On the pillow lay a single sheet of heavy cream paper, written in Voss's tidy hand.

Bring the Ledger to the Bank. Come alone. Your sister is perfectly safe.