Children of Artifice

by Danie Ware

  Before long, he found the weight of the rock pressing down on him; he struggled to breathe and made an effort to keep calm.

  ‘Easy,’ Jularn said. ‘There is no reason to fear. These tunnels follow the curve of the crater wall and they’re old, long unused, their ores gone. Our quest for resources has taken us wider, generation by generation. We mine copper here, zinc, silver, iron, some gold. Zircon, and quartz. This is Caphen’s strength, Talmar, the reason we can rise to Selection. The gift that Artifice gave her children.’

  He stumbled again, had visions of himself tumbling down some unseen hole. Despite the cold, his palms were sweating. He rubbed them together, then found that he couldn’t stop. The rock over him was too much, too heavy, suffocating. If it carried the whole of the—

  He paused, gasping, one hand on the wall.

  ‘There is no danger,’ Jularn said. ‘The volcano sleeps, and the basalt is cold, deep beneath the city. There are few fissures, and little danger of us encountering one. And while the stone is still under stress, that stress is very old and very slow.’ Her voice was lit with something that might have been love. ‘Can you not feel it? Can you not hear it sing?’

  ‘No, I can’t.’ The words were shorter than he’d meant them; but he stood up and they moved on, changing direction now and heading inwards, towards the city itself. Caph felt the air begin to move. It sighed past him like a hot, metal-laden breath, hinting at, not more tunnels, but at some vast space beyond. He started to hear noises – something that groaned and creaked as if some huge and unseen monster awaited them… Some vast metal brother to the ancient golem that waited, so patiently, outside…

  Caph was rubbing his hands again; he stopped himself.

  ‘Stop here,’ Jularn said softly. ‘Captain, you and Ghalpana come with us. You two,’ to the other guards, ‘There is a ledge here, to the left. Hold this position and, under no circumstances, move anywhere without an order from my son or myself, is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ The houseguard captain, Caph thought his name was Illuar, gave brief instructions. Then he and Ghalpana, her face gaunt in the light, took positions front and back.

  ‘Very well then,’ Jularn said. ‘We’re close now. Move quietly.’

  They crept forward. Caph could see little, only their safe circle of illumination, but the sounds were growing louder, as if the air ahead of him was huge, and breathing. The space below seemed filled with a shuddering potential; he didn’t understand it. He knotted his fingers until they hurt.

  Beside him, Jularn’s gaze seemed filled with the sodium light, aflame with anticipation. Her breathing was fast and her gemstones glittered. This was her place, and she knew it.

  Children of Artifice.

  He had no idea if it was his.

  They crept forward.

  The noises grew louder, the rhythmic rattle of metal and stone, the continuous, grinding creak of machinery. There came a distant glow of heat, a ruddy glimmer against the roof of the tunnel. There came the rumble of falling water, a huge quivering in the rock. Something in his head knew what the noises were – but this was not his mother’s table, not the hotly diced equations of the wharfside…

  Can you not hear it sing?

  The stone down here was breathing. The life he’d never felt in the Caphen house, in the high streets crafted by the Builders, so long ago – it was here, and raw, and real. He could feel it in his skin, in the bones behind his ears; feel its age and weight and strata and growth. Its life. He could feel the ancient pressures that seemed to push outwards from the volcano’s centre; he could feel the sharpness of the metals and, somewhere, the long splits of the fissures in the rock. And he found he understood – why cutting the living stone was deemed blasphemy, and why the Builders had turned upon Artifice when she’d shown her servants how to survive…

  They came to the end of a tunnel, and stopped.

  Ahead of them, the tunnel became an open mouth, looking out over a space below – a space seemingly filled with ruddy, noisy, metal-stinking chaos. Shadows moved on the ceiling, and they hinted at some titanic and mechanical motion below.

  Compelled, Caph crept to the very edge, and peered over. And, there it was: the single most bloody insane thing he’d ever seen.

  The cavern below was measureless, its roof arched and dark and hanging with stalactites. They glimmered with crystal, reflecting the red glow into a sky of scarlet stars.

  But that was not what held his attention, what reft him of breath. Below him lay a huge, industrial complex, a sprawling, spider-like city of metal and fire, of carven pillars and elaborate archways, and of a dark and churning something that seemed to fill the endless depths.

  He blinked, peered.

  The floor of the cavern was all machine. A creaking, thundering, rotating machine, a smelting machine, a machine flanked by endless trucks and rails and outbuildings, a machine with the huge, grinding wheels of pulverisation and the glitter of water as it washed the mined ore clean. And the sound of it was overwhelming, a rumbling, echoing music that made him want to put his broken hands over his ears and shout back at it to drown it out.

  He found himself retreating; was stopped by his mother’s hand. ‘There is no need to fear,’ she said. ‘We’re under the water here, not yet as far as the city itself, and we’re quite safe.’ She was smiling, her face rapt. ‘And this… this is what Artifice gave to us. You already know the symbols…’ Her arm came past him to point at where they were gouged into the metal. ‘The principle here is exactly the same. They draw upon the life of the stone itself, and they power, the heat, the water, the pressure – the extraction of the pure metal. It’s just… on a larger scale.’ There was a flicker of humour in her tone.

  The guard captain, said, ‘Ma’am. But where are the miners?’

  ‘There are no miners,’ Jularn said softly. ‘And only a scatter of trusted staff.’ She joined Caph at the very outermost limit of the tunnel, her robes flickering faintly in the air that came up from the heat below. ‘In my days as Assayer, I came here often – it’s where I first met your father. This has been my life’s work, Talmar, the research and strength that I have brought to the city, and to house Caphen. ‘

  He stared at her, uncomprehending.

  With a flicker of impatience at his lack of understanding, she said, ‘Below you, you see only the heart, the node of the machine. Almost all of the mined ore is weighed and smelted here, and what goes back to the city is pure metal, already processed. Most of it goes to Ivar, some to the wharfside, some even as far round as Vanchar, or Rhentaka.’ She stood over it, proud and protective, looking down at this monster that had brought house Caphen its power. ‘I married your father because he had the infrastructure to give us – give this – control of our outreach. He and Bectar have secured our property and trade routes, wrested many back from the other houses. They have the influence and the organisation to bring our strength to the light. Bectar is brilliant, fearless and strong, very much her father’s daughter. But you, you are my son. And this is the legacy that I would leave you. That Artifice would leave you.’ She paused, making the point. ‘And that you must earn.’

  Caph had no words. The sprawling thing ground and creaked and turned, it roared and rumbled with heat and molten metal. And yet the city above it remained unknowing, oblivious to even its presence. The people knew the mines were here, but to understand what they really consisted of… They didn’t know what Artifice had wrought, this thing that lurked in the depths…

  Yet Darrah had said ‘sabotage’.

  Someone knew all this was here – and that someone had the skill to break it.

  ‘Now,’ Jularn said. ‘Let us continue. We have work to do.’

  They turned away from the great cavern, heading back into the tunnels in the wall. Caph could still hear the machine, still feel it in the stone; his chest hurt with the resonance of it. For no reason
he could define, it made him miss his music, its expression and relief, more than he had in years. The thought of his zanyar exhilarated him – he could have new hands, a new future…

  If this ‘Raife’ could make them happen.

  He paused on the thought for a moment, stumbling along the corridor, pulled by the little bob of sodium light. He was walking in the heart of Caphen’s power, its strength and potential and metallurgical might, its connections to the Builders. His connections. And yet this ‘Raife’ could perform miracles that his mother could not…

  Behind him, Ghalpana stumbled, cursed. Instinctively, he turned to help her, but she was upright again, her face a sickly oval in the faint, yellow gleam. She smiled, but the expression was hollow – she went back to looking at the walls, their slick dampness, at the weight over their heads.

  Ahead of him, the captain held up a hand. ‘Ma’am,’ he said. ‘We’ve come to a… a ledge.’

  Jularn said, ‘Captain. You and Ghalpana stay here. Talmar, with me. Watch your step.’

  They turned down a tunnel, the air thick and still. Caph found he was breathing dust motes. He coughed.

  ‘These tunnels are mostly silver,’ Jularn said. ‘We’re getting close now, so walk carefully.’

  Caph didn’t need telling twice. He eased along the tunnel with his heart in his mouth, all thoughts of music forgotten. As they came to its end, he realised he was sweating, and that his household finery was stuck to him, and filthy. There was a peculiar, harsh dissonance in the air, something that didn’t feel right – almost as if he was playing his zanyar with the strings tuned all wrong…

  Jularn stopped at the far side, gestured. ‘There.’

  Ahead of him, the tunnel opened out into a wide, tall cavern. But its roof had come down – the floor was a mess of debris. And from it stuck the crushed remnant of mangled metalwork…

  Metalwork that was neither upright, nor winch.

  ‘The roof may be unsteady,’ Jularn said. ‘Speak and move softly.’

  ‘Now you tell me.’ He blew out a careful breath, trying to stop his heart from pounding. Something in his head said, You may die here.

  But Jularn walked into the cavern with no fear of death, no fear of the crushed metal, the rockslide, or the weight of the crater wall over her head. She stood alone, her figure slight against the stone and the darkness.

  ‘What’s under there?’ he asked, pointing. ‘What…?’

  Her answering chuckle was very soft, but it echoed in the stone as if she owned it. ‘What do you think does our mining for us?’ she asked. ‘Like the trams, the machinery was old and much of it had ceased to function, but its repair was not so difficult.’ There was power in her tone. ‘Perhaps the trams can be restored too, in time.’

  Caph felt, rather than heard, her inhale as if she could breathe in the very life of the stone.

  He heard her start to hum the dissonance, the notes angular and broken. He heard the air begin resonate around her; he could almost see it shimmer; react to the sheer force of the sound.

  She tipped her head back, raised her arms. Her hands described the equations that he knew so well, but they were not what held his attention. The music that came from her was changing, shifting from disharmony to an eerie, minor chord, and then dropping by almost an octave, the suddenness of the bass notes making the whole of the landslide ripple.

  Sounds made patterns, he knew that. Caused waves, and reactions. Enough force from a single note could shatter glass… or stone.

  Was that how the Builders had crafted?

  How they’d moulded the living rock?

  Below her, he saw the landslide shift, heard it groan; he saw her stagger under the weight of it. The hum dropped again, became two notes only, simultaneous and powerful, a demand for absolute submission.

  And then, Caph saw the whole of the rockfall begin to move.

  *

  Tock… Tock…

  In the stillness of Caph’s bedroom, a metronome marked out the time.

  Outside, the sun was sinking in a clear and flawless sky – the spread of the city’s outskirt, far below, shone with the ruby glow of evening. Inside, the curtains billowed faintly in a soft breeze and he touched his fingertips to the strings at the zanyar’s throat.

  His mother was still unconscious, laid out on her bed and being watched by the house physician; she had exhausted herself with the healing of the silver mines and Caph couldn’t – wouldn’t – fathom what she had done

  He was still reeling from it all, from a broken-open understanding that was more than he could take on board, possibly at all. He’d heard her voice, seen her hands; he’d seen her extract metal from ore, seen her heat and cool it, shape it, merge simple alloys – but he’d only seen it in tiny amounts, like his hands… To see the stone move at her command, tons of it, to see it change, to see it lift and fuse and rebuild itself like molten metal, to see the entire mine shift like the sand in a child’s pit…

  He’d heard the music, felt it in the walls, in the life of the stone.

  Children of Artifice.

  It terrified him – and yet he understood now. He understood why his family had been so angry with his presence at the wharfside, with his refusals to grow up. He understood about Aden, why they’d reacted as they had. His sulking suddenly seemed so small, compared to everything that house Caphen could muster…

  Everything they carried responsibility for.

  He carried responsibility for.

  That you must earn.

  With a shiver of nervousness, he drew the bow across the instrument’s open notes, slowly, making it keen, deep and gentle.

  Tock… Tock…

  But he couldn’t play it, not yet. His head was still too full of the music of the stone, the sound of Jularn’s power. His hands needed to express something that he wasn’t sure he understood…

  He was afraid that he could, and afraid that he couldn’t.

  He wondered if Bec knew about the machinery; realised that Darrah had known all along. We’re fortunate in their loyalty. Realised he’d been kept unaware, and deliberately, for his entire adult life…

  …because they didn’t trust him.

  Shit.

  Letting out his breath, he counted the metronome’s time. Beginning before he could doubt himself, he played something simple and familiar, the easily dancing notes of an older piece that he’d learned as a teenager – Loier’s Sacred Stone. It wasn’t complex, but it had an eloquence he’d always loved and the zanyar cried aloud under his fingers, notes rising and tumbling. Its deep voice was mournful, yet full of power; it rose to fill the evening light with fervour.

  Yes. I can do this!

  With a sudden rush of confidence, like an addict given a fix, he closed his eyes, let his body move with the instinctive, precision dancing action of the bow, let its voice wash over him.

  The machine had been shattering, enlightening. It had given him strength, a faith in his own family and background that he’d never known. His heart was tight, thinking how close he’d come to leaving this, to never understanding it. To never being trusted or adult enough. Flickers of memory came from the wharfside, heat and strength and hunger, but it wasn’t enough--

  I can still play!

  Once, the zanyar had been everything; it had been light and life and outlet, sanity, rhyme and reason. It had been his best friend, his career and his past and his future; it had been the love of the city and the only thing he’d ever really wanted.

  Tock… Tock…

  Faster now – the zanyar’s voice lifted higher, following the music’s rise and fall to a sweet thunder, a cry against the darkening of the summer air. As it gathered volume, a cascade of deep and liquid sound flowed out to fill the room, and he—

  The tempo changed and the metronome threw him. He missed a note.

  Only for a sec
ond; his fingering missed the G-string and he flubbed the phrase, lost the bar, lost the time.

  Shit!

  Tock… Tock…

  Gone.

  And then he was sat, just himself, human and mortal and flawed, his fingers hurting, the zanyar in his lap like a disappointed lover.

  Hells! A sudden, childish explosion of helplessness and frustration. I can do this! I know I can do this!

  He flexed the fingers of his left hand into a white-knuckled fist, bit his nails into his palm for a moment while he hung grim-death onto a sudden, ludicrous urge to pick the instrument up and shatter it into matchwood – it’s not fair! – then he let out his breath, stretched out his hand and ran his thumb over the aching, callus-free pads of his fingertips.

  The door to his room creaked half-open, and a knock preceded a feminine voice.

  ‘Tal?’ Ducking under the slope of the ceiling, Bec was in a long and glittering gown, her blonde curls elaborately dressed – on Caphen’s behalf, she patronised the upper city’s Theatre and he’d always felt it was her version of his music, the place she went to escape. At the sight of him, she stopped and gave a sudden, surprised smile. ‘You’re playing.’

  ‘Not really.’ Caph’s answer was curt; he couldn’t face his own lack of ability, not yet.

  ‘You will.’ Bec smiled at him, really meaning it. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just came in to tell you that Mum was awake.’

  He looked up sharply. ‘Is she all right?’ Rumbles of memory echoed alongside the metronome. ‘Bec, she was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ As if to explain the zanyar, he said, ‘I can still hear it. Everything.’

  ‘Dad took me down there, about five years ago,’ Bec said. ‘And I know what you mean.’ She pushed a tendril of hair out of her face. ‘But yes, she’s fine, just exhausted. She wanted to get up, but Darrah wasn’t having any of it – he can be a right tyrant if he puts his mind to it.’ A brief grin, then she paused, looking at the instrument where it lay in his lap, now voiceless. ‘Tal…’

  Her tone had an odd reluctance, as if there was something she didn’t want to say.