The Rot's War

by Michael John Grist

  Awa Babo opened his mouth, but nothing in all the echoes of his logic banks and streamlined systems of thought had an answer for that. If he could walk the veil, it was possible. If it was possible, that meant it could have happened. The loss of his war machines had always been a mystery. He remembered King Seem standing over him, when he'd ordered the last Gnomics to bury him in his birthing pit.

  Even then, Seem had not known where the war machines had gone.

  Had Sen taken them?

  The spike of hope surged through him. If, and if, but ifs were better than the certainty he had known all his life. Ifs now felt as hard as diamante. There had never been a chance for him. He had always expected to live until the end alone, and then die. Dying had been the only thing he ever looked forward to.

  Now there was the chance see his army again, and to use them in service of a much greater good. What if he could free them all? They were simple minds, but they deserved more. He had always deserved more than Seem had destined him to. No creature should labor in a cell forever. Perhaps freeing them would go some small way to repay the losses Sen had taken in order to free him.

  "Then we'll go to them," he said.

  "I can't walk the veil," Freemantle said. "You'll have to go alone."

  * * *

  They prepared a new Book; that of Awa Babo. The once-machine lay feebly on his bed while Freemantle questioned him, recording every detail of his passive life and every detail he could remember of Sen's movements through the veil.

  It was a slim volume. It saddened Awa Babo to see it.

  His life had ranged over millennia, but nothing had ever happened. Few things had mattered. He had cared for nobody. It seemed strange to him now that he should care for Sen, for the echo of Sen's friends, though he did.

  He had been changed by this new union. Plunging into Sen's embrace had been a kind of second birth. He still felt guilt for what he'd done, but it was shifted now. It was bearable, as Sen had come to him fully aware of the sacrifice he was to make. He had given him this immense gift; freedom and the veil. Now he had the chance to spread that freedom further.

  When the book of Awa Babo was complete, Freemantle lifted his frail form and carried him carefully to the chair.

  "There may be little time."

  "There is little time," Awa Babo confirmed. He could feel it everywhere now; his senses attuned in the conjoining. "The Darkness is very near. It laps beneath our feet."

  As his body settled into the chair, Freemantle first looked warily at the white floor, then wedged him in with cushions.

  "Sen came through that wall," Awa Babo said, remembering, though he was too weak to point.

  Freemantle nodded. "I did too. Perhaps one day we'll all pass back through."

  Awa Babo smiled, for he knew he would not be coming back. "I simply close my eyes?"

  "And think of the Corpse World. Think of the life you left behind, of home if you can. The veil should come to you. But there may be a trial, a kind of vision. There was one for me and one for Sen. There may be one for you."

  "I read the veil all my life," said Awa Babo, taken by a moment of wonder that such things were possible. "I never thought I would walk it so freely."

  Freemantle clapped him on the shoulder. "Now's your chance to fly."

  "Farewell," said Awa Babo, "and thank you for watching over us all."

  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes on the world of Freemantle, and opened them on another.

  The veil formed around him; white and rich and confounding. He was standing, his Sen-legs and arms returned to him in this place. So many possibilities arched outward, and each was a new construction upon which he could build countless layers, building until all around him spun glorious cathedrals of meaning.

  But not yet. There was a break in the line between him and all of them, and into that break stepped a figure he recognized. It was Sen, seen as if in a mirror.

  "Let's go together," Sen said.

  He looked younger. He looked well, and Awa Babo found himself nodding. Together they began to walk.

  "I forgive you for giving me up," Sen said to him cheerfully. "It's in the past now."

  This seemed natural, even if forgiveness conferred a guilt he had not fully felt until then. Now its load bore him down heavily. That puzzled him in hundreds of thought-cycles as they walked on.

  "Where are we going?" he asked.

  "The revenant arch," Sen answered. "It's just up ahead."

  Awa Babo peered into the cool white. There was nothing there but more white. "I don't see it."

  "Then trust me, machine. I know the veil. It lies just ahead."

  They walked, and walked, and Awa Babo felt the thought-cycles spinning through him; puzzling over guilt that was not guilt, and distances that were not distances.

  "Not so far now," Sen would say from time to time.

  Eventually Awa Babo stopped, understanding. This too was just another cell. He'd lived in one long enough to know what it was. Sen moved to face him, blocking the path.

  "Why have you stopped?"

  It seemed to the Mjolnir machine that he knew, that they both knew. "There's no revenant arch that way, Sen."

  "Of course there is. It's just over the next rise."

  There were no rises. There were no features but white. "No."

  "Follow me," said Sen cheerily, though there was a cruelty growing in his eyes. "I know the veil better than a machine that never once stepped out of its hole."

  Awa Babo watched his own hand reach out to Sen's belt.

  "What are you doing?" Sen asked blankly.

  "I'm sorry," said Awa Babo, as he drew the misericorde spike.

  "You don't need that."

  "I do."

  He held the blade as a dagger, lifted it back, then brought it down into Sen's chest.

  Sen didn't move, only stared at him as white blood oozed from the wound. "You wanted to do that from the beginning. You've stolen my life, and my love."

  "You're the arch," said Awa Babo. "I had to. Freemantle told me it would be hard."

  Sen laughed. "You think that was hard, machine?"

  The white about them peeled away.

  Awa Babo opened his eyes on the Corpse World again, but in a different place and a different time.

  A figure stood before him, a powerful young Appomatox with twin misericorde spikes drawn and cinched hard against his throat.

  "You aren't Sen," she said.

  BOOK 5. THE SAINT

  CRALEY SHARK II

  Craley Shark was studying one of the ancient books of King Seem's historians when Sen appeared behind her. She felt his arrival as a changing in the thickness of the air in the library. She turned and immediately knew something was wrong. Sen had never simply appeared before.

  For a moment Craley watched him in the revelatory light, this man who looked like Sen, and in that brief time read everything she needed to know. The man staggered. His face was dazed, and he was plainly baffled by the surroundings he found himself within; Seem's Great Library. He held himself totally differently from the Sen Craley had known, who had always been perfectly in balance, fluid and limber. This man moved with no sense of momentum; angular and uncomfortable. No man who had mastered the spikes so skillfully could ever move like that.

  Craley drew her misericordes from their sheaths on the desk and cleared the distance between them in a heartbeat, was upon him in two, and in three was whispering the first real words Awa Babo ever heard in the Corpse World.

  "You aren't Sen."

  * * *

  Awa Babo's eyes fixed on the woman before him. She was an Appomatox, though her chest-mouth was hidden under a thick wool tunic. Awa Babo had never seen an Appomatox before, but knew from the memories he'd been built with what one looked like; large shoulders, thin waist, and a mouth in her chest that led to no throat. A pair of ribbed gills flared in her neck.

  Her eyes were sharp and intelligent. Awa Babo felt himself being stared into even as he stared b
ack. This was Craley Shark, the remnants of Sen whispered up to him. Saint Craley, Sen's daughter.

  "I am Awa Babo," he said. "I've come in Sen's place."

  The spikes pressed tighter about Awa Babo's neck, constricting his windpipe. For the first time he thought, I have a windpipe.

  "Where is he?"

  In Craley's brown eyes Awa Babo saw tight, controlled anger.

  "I killed him," Awa Babo said, "and I took his body."

  Before Awa Babo had a chance to say anything more, Craley pulled one of the spike's back and swung it to crack haft-first against his head.

  He came to with a bruising headache. His first. As a machine he had never known pain, though he had dim memories of the life Sen had led and the pain he had known. It had been a kind of pain when the Aigles and Ators had been cut from him in the first glimmerings after his birth, but not like this. That was sharp, but more like madness as his senses slipped away. It was nauseating, wrenching even, but different.

  This was immediate and physical. His temple throbbed, and he wondered that his first bruise would even now be swelling, his first drops of blood dripping.

  He blinked. He was in a library, King Seem's Great Library, lit by the hissing halo of a revelatory light. He saw shelves stretching out into the darkness like spokes from a wheel, stacked with ancient-looking books. The Emeritus had had none of these.

  "What am I doing here?" he thought, then realized he had said it. Involuntarily he tried to reach up to touch his lips as though to push the words back in, but failed because his arm wouldn't move. For a terrible moment he feared it had been cut off, just as his war machine limbs had been cut off, then he felt the tight pain about his wrists and realized his arms were bound behind him.

  He was seated in a chair looking into the bright white of a powerful revelatory lamp. He tried to stand but found his lower body was fastened to the heavy chair too.

  Craley Shark stepped into his field of view. The revelatory was behind her, so her face was shadowy while her outline had a white glow.

  "Who are you?"

  Her features were dim but Awa Babo could clearly see the silhouettes of misericordes at her waist. More fragments of Sen's memory rose to the surface like bodies in a lake; he was standing before a Moleman and hammering himself in the thigh. He was beating a Spider in the dark of an underground tunnel.

  Sen had the capacity for such violence, so perhaps his daughter did too. He had left Craley alone here for years, and perhaps she'd gone mad. The callousness of it struck Awa Babo fiercely. He too had been left alone for thousands of years. Brief anger surged in him and he wondered at it. He had never felt it before. Before there had been only the hollow ache of being alone.

  "My name is Awa Babo," he said, "and I have come on Sen's behalf."

  Craley snorted. "You killed him, stole his body, and expect me to believe he sent you?"

  "He's here in me still. Some part of him anyway."

  Craley regarded him for a long moment. "What part?"

  "The edges. The marks that remained, when he'd used up everything inside."

  Craley considered. "Like scars."

  "Like a clay vase takes the shape of its mold," Awa Babo added helpfully. "I remember what he did, for your shared dream of rebellion against the Darkness. I remember the army of the defeated."

  Craley ignored this and drew a spike. Awa Babo felt a tingle of anticipation run through him. Was it excitement, or fear? He thought both.

  "Why did you kill him?"

  For a moment he considered lying. That had never been an option to him before. The edges of Sen afforded him that, but lying would not help now. "I wanted to die. He wanted to save the world. I couldn't help him do that; because the Darkness seemed my only way out."

  Craley turned the misericorde slowly. "And now you have his body."

  Awa Babo nodded. Craley seemed to ponder this for a moment, then she sheathed the spike.

  "Awa Babo," she mused, saying the words slowly and rolling them around her mouth. "The Emeritus' new mind."

  Awa Babo felt his mouth make a foolish round O. "Yes," he replied starkly. "How do you know that?"

  Craley smiled. "I sent him to get you."

  * * *

  Craley untied him, and they continued their conversation sitting either side of a desk strewn with papers, quills, and a crosshatched wooden board with carved wooden pieces standing atop it in ordered ranks. They both held cups of tea, the brown liquid steaming. Awa Babo nearly spat out his first sip it was so bitter. Craley laughed.

  "It's made with brunifer roots. It's supposed to taste like that."

  "Foul," was all Awa Babo could manage, his face curdling as he swallowed.

  Craley's smile widened, then faded. "It was Sen's favorite."

  Awa Babo nodded.

  "Take some sugar." Craley pointed to the brown pot. Awa Babo opened it and spooned three scoops into the drink. The next sip was more palatable.

  "I suppose that's the first thing you've ever tasted," Craley said.

  Awa Babo nodded.

  "It's no mother's milk, but it's a good start."

  Together they sipped at the hot liquid, each lost in their own thoughts.

  "We have our similarities, you and I," Craley said at last. "Sen is a kind of father to us both. He birthed you. He raised me. He left us with a mission."

  Awa Babo nodded. It was strange to have a head that could bob up and down. It was strange to transmit meaning to the world through his own actions. All he'd ever known was passivity, and the barest communication through dreams. To engage directly and impact the actual world was a very new feeling.

  "I wasn't social either, for a long time," Craley said, as if reading these thoughts. "I used to piss all over myself, because I was too intent to get up. I stank, I couldn't talk, and I hated Sen most of all. Perhaps you can imagine that."

  Awa Babo nodded again. It was an impressive trick to wag his head like this and still communicate, so minimal but so effective.

  "Now I talk to anything that'll listen. There are statues in the portico hall I've had arguments with that lasted months. Plus every book is a discussion between me and the dead author. I can imagine them responding to my questions, and so we have a dialog. Occasionally we fight, me with my spikes, them with caulks or whatever they choose. I often win, but not always."

  "I understand," Awa Babo said. "Perhaps better than any."

  Craley laughed. "Of course. You're an expert at not going mad by now, I expect. How many years have you been alone? About four millennia, I think, though I've got the precise date somewhere here." She gestured around at the library. "Do you know that the Molemen, they're the ancestors of the Emeritus' Gnomics, by the way, and of Mogs come to think of it, do you know they revere you?" She laughed abruptly, as if that was a very fine thing. "There's a constellation named after you, though you never even did anything! You're their god because you felt nothing at all."

  He didn't know that. He'd been a god before though.

  "A lot of potential there," Craley said, pointing at Awa Babo's head. Sen's head. It was confusing already. "Your brain, the things you were programmed for. Tell me, do you remember collecting the army? Did Sen get them all?"

  "Some of it. I think so. I remember pieces, mostly."

  Craley nodded. They sat quietly a time longer, looking at each other over the table.

  "What's that?" asked Awa Babo, nodding toward the carved wooden pieces standing on the crosshatched board. Each one of them was different, though some he thought he recognized. One of them could be a landshark with rider, another a representation of an Aigle attack ships, one a long-winged albatross. Others he wasn't so sure of.

  "A representation," replied Craley. "It's the battle for Ignifer, in pieces. It's a kind of game. I sent Sen to collect four great heroes. He clearly reached you."

  They looked at each other over the pieces.

  "What happened with the rest?"

  Awa Babo told her what he could recall.r />
  Craley listened and asked questions. Her memories were vague and spotted, but clearly to a purpose, as an overview emerged from the pieces. It seemed that Sen had gathered them all, at least until it came to Awa Babo. When the story was done Craley sat quietly, holding the now empty mug in her hands.

  "Freemantle told me to fight, so I came to you," Awa Babo finished lamely into the quiet.

  Craley said nothing.

  "I don't remember if he collected the Mjolnir armies. Freemantle had a theory about that. He said only I would be able to control them, though I don't know how, since I cannot read the veil."

  Craley snorted. "We're in the veil. The white space outside my library is some kind of perch to read the veil from."

  Awa Babo looked around. "I don't recognize it. It doesn't look as it used to."

  "I'm sure it doesn't. You're seeing it through different eyes."

  Awa Babo set his tea mug on the table. "So did he?" he asked. "Did Sen take my armies?"

  Craley met his gaze with her own. "How would I know? I haven’t seen him since he left. I have no idea."

  "Then," Awa Babo began, but didn't know what else to say.

  "You have his mind in you," Craley said. "Or at least the remnants. Can't you see if he took them or not?"

  Awa Babo shrugged. "It doesn't work like that. Fragments rise up. It's disjointed. I can't call something up just because I want to."

  Craley gave a black smile. "Then let's hope the right fragments rise up."

  Awa Babo frowned. Was that what he'd come here for? "That's it? We should just sit and wait?"

  "Yes. I've been here for years already. I think you're pretty good at waiting by now." The young woman's smile became a grin.

  "How can you say that?" Awa Babo pressed, feeling a new flush of anger. There was pleasure in indulging it. "I owe a debt for what I have taken. We must fight. Freemantle sent me to fight."

  "Then fight," said Craley magnaminously, gesturing for Awa Babo to stand. "Have at it."

  Awa Babo stood, then looked around himself. "How do I fight?"

  Craley only watched him, and for a moment Awa Babo thought the youth might be enjoying this. That made him feel angry and faintly ridiculous at the same time.