Chapter 254: Deep Furnace

The Ash Court shaft gave off black and orange heat as Austin Veyron’s group climbed down the ladder set into its walls, while far above them Ysa was talking with the court workers over the relay.

ASH COURT COAL RESERVES: THREE MOVED TO MANUAL LINES.

FURNACE PIPES: FOUR OPEN, TWO UNDER REPAIR.

HEAT CLOTH: RELEASED FROM SECURITY STORE.

Counting the sources didn’t make the sanctuary safe, but it kept what was left visible while the deep furnace tried to draw from it.

"This chamber is older than anything we can see above," Nyra said, lifting the heart shard against the wall of the shaft. "The Ash Court was built on top of a deep source that once powered furnaces all through the East, and the shard is trying to take the source back to its original ownership."

Austin Veyron stared down into the depths of the furnace and felt DEVOUR react, because he could sense the whole source, from the coal reserves to the stoves, lamps, and pipes, and even the braziers the workers used to stay warm, and if he devoured it, he could stop the draw, but he would also be claiming every fire in the Ash Court as his own.

Veyra stood on the rung below him. "Name it."

"The deep source."

"And what would it make?"

"A furnace everyone has to rely on."

"Then smaller," Sable said, her shard sending white light traveling down the shaft. "Find the claim on the source. Don’t devour the people who keep it alive."

When they reached the bottom, they met furnace guardians, larger than the root guardians and made of black iron and furnace brick, their chest plates swinging open to show a chain stamped with words.

THE DEEP SOURCE OWNS THE FIRES ABOVE.

The first guardian lunged at Tamsin with its iron arm, and she stopped it with her spear but was pushed back against the wall, while Rin leaped onto the guardian’s chest and raked it with her claws, black sparks flying everywhere, Seris and Calder took on its legs and began cutting through the chains, and Veyra cut a heat lash that was heading for Tessa’s relay slate.

Austin Veyron could see the claim inside the guardians’ chests, and the deep source didn’t own the fires above just because they depended on it, because a stove in a home, a lamp at work, or a brazier in a clinic was made real by the people who tended it, not by a source deep underground trying to take it from them.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The deep-source-owns-the-fires-above claim. Not the source’s heat, the fires in the sanctuary, or the workers."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable answered.

Austin Veyron placed his white root chain against the stamped chain inside the guardian’s chest.

DEVOUR opened, and the claim tasted like a furnace in the cellar trying to take every candle in the house.

THE DEEP SOURCE OWNS THE FIRES ABOVE.

He consumed candle.

The guardian stopped moving, and its chest plate fell open to reveal a man inside, a demon wrapped in wire with black source markings across his skin, wearing what looked like an old furnace worker’s coat.

Tamsin cut him free, and the man coughed smoke as he took in his surroundings. "My name is Tolan. I worked the deep furnace before the court made it a crown. The source was supposed to feed the court through open valves, but they changed it so that every furnace below has to feed the one above it."

"Will you choose to tell us more?" Tessa asked.

"Yes. The source has three wheels that feed from it. If the shard turns all three, it will pull every coal reserve in the Ash Court into the eastern line. If we destroy the wheels, the source will explode. If we take the source, it will use us as the wheel."

Nyra looked at the heat lines running through the furnace. "We can separate the claim from the heat lines. If Ysa can keep the valves open above us, we can stop the source from claiming the eastern line as its own."

The black furnace rumbled, and three iron wheels came into view in front of them with a pit of fire at their center, where the shard sat inside the pit, sending black lines through each of the wheels, one heading up to the sanctuary and another traveling east toward a buried line.

THE LOWEST FIRE PAYS THE HIGHEST CROWN.

"That’s what they’re using to power the wheels," Tolan said.

Above them, the relay showed the heat dropping.

LOWER WARD STOVES COOLING.

MANUAL VALVES HOLDING, BUT EAST DRAW INCREASING.

Austin Veyron knew what he wanted to do, which was to devour the furnace before the lower ward lost too much heat, but Veyra stopped him. "Name it."

"Devouring it now."

"And what would it make?"

"A crown that calls urgency a reason to take everything."

"Then smaller," Sable said, pointing at the teeth of the wheels. "Take the claim that makes every fire pay the crown."

Austin Veyron began walking toward the first wheel as heat whipped around them, because the source wasn’t only waking up, but paying its heat to a crown in the East.

Tessa opened every channel to the Ash Court.

DEEP FURNACE ORDER ACTIVE. DO NOT FEED EXTRA COAL INTO BLACK-DRAW LINES. KEEP MANUAL VALVES OPEN. REPORT ANY EASTWARD HEAT LOSS.

"The workers have moved the first reserve off the eastern pipe," Ysa relayed back, with smoke and hammering in the background. "All the court families are opening their storehouses to help with the heat lines. If we can stop the wheels from claiming them, we can keep the fire alive in the Ash Court."

One of the iron wheels turned and pulled from the pit, and one of the repaired furnace pipes creaked above them, and Tolan ran to a side plate and yelled over the heat. "The wheels don’t feed coal to the source. They feed the claim that they get to control where the heat goes. If you break the wheels’ teeth without breaking the claim, the next wheel will just think it’s higher than the rest."

Nyra traced the lines on the wheels with the heart shard. "They each feed from a different source, the court reserves, the worker valves, and the old line that runs east. The claim makes them think each one is paying the one above."

A furnace guardian rose out of a pile of iron beside the second wheel, and Tamsin charged it and pinned its arm against the wall while Rin dug into its chest opening with her claws, Seris and Calder broke through the chains on its legs, and Veyra cut a heat lash before it could reach Tolan’s side plate.

Austin Veyron reached the first wheel and could feel the words on its teeth, and he could feel the ladder in them, the lower ward’s stoves paying the court furnace, the court furnace paying the eastern line, and the eastern line paying a crown that never saw the workers who carried its coal.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The lowest-fire-pays-the-highest-crown claim. Not the heat, the wheels, the sources in the Ash Court, or the workers in the East."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable answered.

Austin Veyron placed his white root chain on the first wheel.

DEVOUR opened, and the claim tasted like a coal carrier being paid in smoke while a crown took his fire.

THE LOWEST FIRE PAYS THE HIGHEST CROWN.

He consumed pays.

The first wheel stopped, and the court reserve line was freed from the eastern line and could travel up to the manual valves above, so that the lower ward’s stoves warmed a little, and Ysa confirmed it through the relay.

COURT RESERVE ONE LOCAL. LOWER WARD STOVES RECOVERING.

The second wheel began spinning faster, trying to claim the worker valves, and Tolan grabbed onto the side plate. "It will keep feeding from every manual line unless we make it clear what they are."

Tessa relayed the real valve information to the court workers, and each one stated which pipe they were opening, what rooms it fed, and its state of repair, so that the black line began to weaken as the workers kept naming what they opened, because Austin Veyron didn’t need to claim their heat to help break the claim, but only needed to let the sources be known by the people who kept them open.

The second wheel broke, and the third began to glow with black light, because it was connected to the eastern line, and it shot a heat line through a small tunnel leading away from the pit.

Nyra followed the line with her heart shard. "The Eastern Caldera. The shard is leading us to something bigger."

"I can keep the source from destroying itself, but the line is gone," Tolan said, closing one of the wheels halfway. "If the local lines stay open, the Ash Court will survive, but the East won’t be so lucky."

Veyra sheathed her blade and leaned against one of the stopped wheels to catch her breath, and Rin hopped down beside her, took Veyra’s arm, and began inspecting her bandages, and Veyra let her, watching Rin’s face with something Austin Veyron had never seen on her before.

Sable came over to Austin Veyron and stared down the tunnel the heat line had traveled through, and then she looked at him and said, "You let them keep their heat," and she reached over and laced her fingers through his.

Across the pit, Veyra caught them standing there and, for once, didn’t roll her eyes, but held Austin Veyron’s gaze for a long moment over Rin’s bent head, and then nodded to him, small and certain, as though the three of them had agreed on something without anyone having to say it.

"Your Ash Court schedule just went public," Elena said over the relay. "Every pipe, every worker, every room." She paused. "Looks like you have a Caldera on your path now. I can tell by the way Nyra is talking." He felt the slip against his heart.

Above them, the first manual heat schedule was being read aloud, coal reserves, pipe conditions, heat cloth, and workers all made public to the Ash Court, so that they had been saved from their crown furnace, but not by Austin Veyron devouring the source.

The heat line traveled on east beneath the mountain, and the Ash Court was only one of many furnaces paying a crown.