Borrowed Levels

Chapter 9: Vault Zero

The staircase went down for a long time.

Aldric Calder walked first, with a sword from the armory in his hand and the stubborn set of the shoulders Ren remembered. He was weak, and he had said so, but he would not hear of being left behind. "I've walked these stairs for six years," he said. "I know every step."

The stone walls had begun to glow with that same pale blue light, the veins of moonvein pulsing along the ceiling. The hum filled everything. Ren felt it in his ribs.

The Ledger spoke softly.

[ VAULT ZERO. ] [ ENTERING ORIGIN POINT. ]

The stairs ended at an enormous cavern, so vast that the far wall was lost in haze. In the center rose a gigantic shape: a tangle of roots and light and slow, breathing darkness, held in place by thousands of silver chains. Every chain led upward to a ring of stone pillars, and every pillar bore a ledger sealed in glass.

In front of it, on a throne of pale stone, sat Mira.

She wore a white nightgown. Her eyes were closed. Thin lines of blue light ran from her fingertips to the chains, and she was breathing in perfect time with the hum.

"Mira!" Ren shouted.

"She cannot hear you," said a calm voice.

Director Voss stepped out from behind a pillar. He looked terrible. The neat silver hair was damp with sweat, and beneath his collar, glowing blue veins crawled up his throat like roots. He was smiling anyway.

"I did say you would come back, Mr. Calder."

"Let her go."

"It is not that simple. If she is released, the chains break, and the god wakes. And then every person in Veyra learns what the Bank has been doing for a hundred years." Voss swayed on his feet. "I have kept this city alive. I have fed it. Do you understand what happens if I stop?"

"People stop owing you," said Ren.

"People stop living."

The enforcers poured from the shadows, a dozen of them, then twenty. Hesk charged the first with her shield. Pip loosed arrows from behind a pillar. Kessin, white-faced, drew a sword he barely knew how to use and defended the stairwell as if his life depended on it.

"Go!" Dara shouted. "We'll hold them! Go!"

Ren ran.

He ran across the cavern floor with his father at his side, ducking arrows, shouldering past guards, and he did not stop until he reached the foot of the stone throne.

Voss was already there. He stood between Ren and Mira, a thin sword in his hand. It glowed pale blue.

"Last chance," he said. "Surrender the Ledger."

"No."

The blades met. Voss was faster than he looked. He had been drinking the god's power for a hundred years, and every strike rang like a bell. Ren, old before his time, slow in his bones, took a cut across the arm and another across his ribs.

Then Aldric's sword came down from the side and caught Voss's blade, and held.

"Go," Aldric grunted. "Go to your sister."

Ren scrambled onto the throne and caught Mira's cold hands in his own.

"Mira. Mira, it's Ren. Wake up."

Her eyes opened. They were not hers. They glowed the same pale blue as the roots, and a voice came out of her mouth, vast and gentle and very old.

Holder.

"Let her go," he whispered.

I cannot. The chains bind us both. A pause. You can end this. Take me into you. I will pay every debt you have, every debt in this city. I will make you a king.

The Ledger blazed in his mind.

[ OFFER: UNLIMITED PRINCIPAL. INTEREST: NONE. ] [ ACCEPT? Y / N ]

It was the best deal he had ever been offered. He could take it. He could have everything back, the years, his hair, his youth. He could be so strong that no one would ever hurt him again.

He looked at Voss, bleeding blue light, trembling on his feet, bound to the thing he thought he controlled.

He looked at the chains.

And for the first time, he understood what the Ledger really was. Not a gift. Not a tool. A key.

"No," Ren said. "I don't want to be the next one."

He turned to the Ledger and said the words that had been forming in him since the diner, since the dungeon, since the first stamp on his father's debt slip.

"Cancel every loan."

[ REQUEST: CANCEL ALL OUTSTANDING ACCOUNTS. ] [ TOTAL INTEREST: 41,300 YEARS. ] [ PAYER: HOLDER. ] [ AVAILABLE LIFESPAN: 44 YEARS. ] [ REMAINDER WILL BE PAID FROM THE VAULT. ] [ CONFIRM? Y / N ]

He understood. The god was the vault. The remainder would come out of the same stolen power that had been holding the city's debts in place.

It would cost him everything he had left.

"Ren, don't," his father said hoarsely.

"It's all right, Dad." Ren smiled. "I never planned on paying it back anyway."

He pressed his palm to the stone and thought yes.

The cavern exploded with light.