by Ken Scholes
“What could do such a thing?” he asked quietly.
A captain coughed politely at the flap of the tent.
Rudolfo looked up. “Yes?”
“The camp is set, General.”
“Excellent news, Captain. I will walk it with you momentarily.” Rudolfo trusted his men implicitly, but also knew that all men rose or fell to the expectations of their leader. And a good leader made those expectations clear.
As the captain waited outside, Rudolfo stood and strapped on his sword. He used a small mirror to adjust his turban and his sash before slipping out into the late morning sun.
After walking the camp, encouraging his men andging hiand listening to them speculate on the demise of Windwir, Rudolfo tried to nap in his tent. He’d not slept for any measurable amount of time in nearly three days now but even with exhaustion riding him, he couldn’t turn his mind away from the ruined city.
It had been magick of some kind, he knew. Certainly the Order had its share of enemies-but none with the kind of power to lay waste so utterly, so completely. An accident, then, he thought. Possibly something the Androfrancines had found in their digging about, something from the Age of Laughing Madness.
That made sense to him. An entire civilization burned out by magick in an age of Wizard Kings and war machines. The Churning Wastes were all the evidence one could need, and for thousands of years, the Androfrancines had mined those Elder Lands, bringing the magicks and machines into their walled city for examination. The harmless tidbits were sold or traded to keep Windwir the wealthiest city in the world. The others were studied to keep it the most powerful.
The bird arrived as the afternoon wore down. Rudolfo read the note and pondered. We’ve found a talking metal man, in Gregoric’s small, pinched script.
Bring him to me, Rudolfo replied and tossed the bird back into the sky.
Then he waited in his tents to see what his Gypsy Scouts had found.
Chapter 3
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam watched the commotion and wondered about the boy. He’d opened his mouth to speak after Sethbert’s embrace, but all that had come out of him was a rush of words. Muttered lines of what sounded like Whymer text. And though he couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen, his tangled hair was white and his eyes were wide and wild. Of course, when Sethbert realized he couldn’t speak, he’d dismissed him to the care of one of his servants. His only interest in the boy was to hear something firsthand of his handiwork.
It turned Jin’s stomach.
Now, as the day wound down, Jin stood in the shadows and watched the scouts return dragging their nets behind them like proud fishermen. The magicks had burned out and she could see them clearly now, their dark silk clothing gray with ash, their faces and hands covered in soot. Metal twitched and gleamed in the nets they dragged.
She counted thirteen metal men in all, and the Androfrancine apprentice was with them, crouching next to them, poking and prodding them through the mesh of the nets. “We’re missing one,” he said.
“He’s down therh3›„e babbling,” the scout said. “He won’t get far; I took his leg off. We’ll go back for him as soon as we’ve dropped this lot off.”
“If the Gypsies don’t get him first,” their captain said as he approached from the direction of Sethbert’s tent, his eyebrows furrowed. “They’re in the city now. Re-magick and shadow them.”
“And if they see us?”
“We’re not at war with them.” He paused and shot a worried glance back in the direction he’d come from. “Not yet anyway.”
The apprentice was untangling one of the metal men from the net. The mechoservitor clicked and shot steam out of its exhaust grate, its glassy eyes fluttering open and then closing. “Are you functional?” the apprentice asked.
“I am functional,” the metal man said.
The apprentice pointed to a nearby tent. “Go into the tent and wait there. Do not speak to anyone but me. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” The mechoservitor, tall and slender, shining in the afternoon sun despite the coating of grime and the dents and scratches along its chassis, walked to the tent.
The apprentice turned to the next, and Jin Li Tam slipped away.
She found the boy in the servants’ tents. He sat silently at a table, a plate of food growing cold in front of him. He was still dressed in the filthy robes they’d found him in, still covered with dirt and ash.
She sat across from him, and he glanced up at her.
“You should eat,” she told him. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it. He shook his head, his eyes filling with tears.
She leaned in. “Can you understand me?”
He nodded.
“I can’t imagine what you’ve seen,” she said. Of course, she could imagine it. Last night, it had filled her dreams, just that briefest look at the wasted remains of Windwir. In those nightmares, Sethbert laughed with glee while dead wizards wandered the streets of that teeming city, calling down death by fire, death by lightning, death by plague. A dozen deaths or more, rain Lior moreing down on a city of screaming innocents until she woke up, covered in sweat.
She remembered the stories about the Age of Laughing Madness, a time of such devastation that those few who survived were driven insane. Now, Jin Li Tam wondered if perhaps this boy had met a similar fate.
But he didn’t have the eyes of a madman. Full of sorrow and despair, yes. But not madness. She knew that look all too well these days.
Jin Li Tam looked around the tent to be sure no one listened. “Sethbert wants you to tell him what you saw,” she said in a low voice. “He wants to hear how Windwir fell, but not for any noble purpose. Do you understand?”
The boy’s face said he didn’t, but he nodded.
“Your story is what you are worth to him. As long as he thinks you are willing to tell it, he will keep you alive and well cared for.” Jin Li Tam reached a hand across the table to cover the boy’s hand. “If he thinks you cannot or will not tell it, he will discard you. Living or dead, I do not know, but he is not a kind man.” She squeezed his hand. “He is a dangerous man.”
She stood up and whistled for a servant.
A heavyset woman appeared in the doorway of the tent. “Yes, Lady?”
“A guest should not be sat to table in his own filth. Clean this boy up and find him fresh clothing.”
“I offered him bathing water, Lady, but he declined.”
Jin Li Tam let the anger edge her voice. “Surely you have children?”
“Yes, Lady. Three.”
She willed her words to soften. “Then you know how to bathe a child.”
“I do, Lady.”
Jin Li Tam nodded once, curtly. “This boy has seen more darkness and despair than any have seen since the Age of Laughing Madness. Be kind to him, and pray that you never see what he has seen.”
Then Jin Li Tam left the tent, knowing she could wait no longer. She’d put it off the last two days, uncertain of the best route. But now she knew there was no chance of her staying. There were coops of message birds scattered throughout the camp. She would find a bird that would not be missed for at least another day. She would fling it at the sky with her simple message, tied with the black thread of danger:
ight="0em" width="1em" align="justify"›Windwir lies in ruin. Sethbert has betrayed us all.
And after, she would sleep with a pouch of magicks beneath her pillow, ready to flee at a word.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts found the metal man sobbing in an impact crater deep in the roiling smoke and glowing ruins of Windwir. He crouched over a pile of blackened bones, his shoulders chugging and his bellows wheezing, his helmetlike head shaking in his large metal hands. They approached him silently, ghosts in a city of ghosts, but the metal man still heard and looked up.
Gouts of steam shot from his exhaust grate. Boiling water leaked from
his glassy jeweled eyes. Nearby lay a mangled metal leg.
“Lla meht dellik ev’I,” the metal man said.
The Gypsies dragged him to Rudolfo because he could not stand on his own and refused to be supported. Rudolfo, from his tents outside the ruins, watched them return just like the message bird had promised.
They dragged the metal man into the clearing and released him, dropping the leg as well. Their bright colored tunics, cloaks and breeches were gray with ash and black from charcoal. The metal man gleamed in the afternoon sun.
They bowed and waited for Rudolfo to speak. “So this is all that’s left of the Great City of Windwir?”
To a man, they nodded. Slow, deliberate nods.
“And the Androfrancine Library?”
One of the Gypsy Scouts stepped forward. “Ashes, Lord.” The scout stepped back quickly, head bowed.
Rudolfo turned to the metal man. “And what do we have here?” He’d seen mechanicals before. Small ones, though, nothing quite so elaborate as a man. “Can you speak?”
“Llew etiuq kaeps nac I,” the metal man said.
Rudolfo looked again to his Gypsy Scouts. The same scout who’d spoken earlier looked up. “He’s been talking since we found him, Lord. It’s no language we’ve ever heard.”
Rudolfo smiled. “Actually, it is.” He turned back to the metal man. “Sdrawkcab kaeps,” he told him.
A pop, a clunk, a gout of steam. The metal man looked Roal man up at Rudolfo, at the smoke-filled sky and the blackened horizon that was once the world’s largest city. He shook and shuddered. When he spoke, his voice carried a depth of lament that Rudolfo had only heard twice before. “What have I done?” the metal man asked, his breast ringing as he beat it with his metal fist. “Oh, what have I done?”
Rudolfo reclined on silk cushions and drank sweet pear wine, watching the sunset wash the metal man red. His own personal armorer bent over the mechanical in the fading light, wiping sweat from his brow while working to reattach the mangled leg.
“It’s no use, Lord,” the metal man said.
The armorer grunted. “It’s nowhere close to good but it will serve.” He pushed himself back, glancing up at Rudolfo.
Rudolfo nodded. “Stand on it, metal man.”
The metal man used his hands to push himself up. The mangled leg would not bend. It sparked and popped but held as he stood.
Rudolfo waved. “Walk about.”
The metal man did, jerking and twitching, using the leg more as a prop.
Rudolfo sipped his wine and waved the armorer away. “I suppose now I should worry about escape?”
The metal man kept walking, each step becoming more steady. “You wish to escape, Lord? You have aided me. Perhaps I may aid you?”
Rudolfo chuckled. “I meant you, metal man.”
“I will not escape.” The metal man hung his head. “I intend to pay fully for my crimes.”
Rudolfo raised his eyebrows. “What crimes are those, exactly?” Then, remembering his manners but not sure if they extended to mechanicals, he pointed to a nearby stool. “Sit down. Please.”
The metal man sat. “I am responsible for the razing of Windwir and the genocide of the Androfrancines, Lord. I do not expect a trial. I do not expect mercy. I expect justice.”
“What is your name?”
The metal man’s golden lids flickered over his jeweled eyes in surprise. “Lord?”
“Your name. What is your name?_ thyour na221;
“I am Mechoservitor Number Three, catalog and translations section.”
“That’s no name. I am Rudolfo. Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses to some. General Rudolfo of the Wandering Army to others. That Damned Rudolfo to those I’ve bested in battle or in bed.”
The metal man stared at him. His mouth-shutters clicked open and closed.
“Very well,” Rudolfo finally said. “I will call you Isaak.” He thought about it for a moment, nodded, sipped more wine. “Isaak. Tell me how exactly you managed to raze the Knowledgeable City of Windwir and single-handedly wipe out the Androfrancine Order?”
“By careless words, Lord, I committed these crimes.”
Rudolfo refilled his glass. “Go on.”
“Are you familiar, Lord, with the Wizard Xhum Y’Zir?”
Rudolfo nodded.
“The Androfrancines found a cache of parchments in the Eastern Rises. They bore a striking resemblance to Y’Zir’s later work including his particular blend of Middle Landlish and Upper V’Ral. Even the handwriting matched.”
Rudolfo leaned forward, one hand stroking his long mustache. “These weren’t copies?”
The metal man shook his head. “Originals, Lord. Naturally, they were brought back to the library. They assigned the translation and cataloging to me.”
Rudolfo picked a honeyed date out of a silver bowl and popped it into his mouth. He chewed around the pit, spitting it into a silk napkin. “You worked in the library.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“Continue.”
“One of the parchments contained the missing text for Xhum Y’Zir’s Seven Cacophonic Deaths-”
Here Rudolfo’s breath rushed out. He felt the blood flee so quickly from his face that he tingled. He raised his hand and fell back into the cushions. “Gods, a moment.”
The metal man, Isaak, waited.
Rudolfo sat back up, d
The metal man shook in one great sob. “I am now, Lord.”
A hundred questions flooded Rudolfo. Each shouted to be asked. He opened his mouth to ask the first but closed it when Gregoric, the First Captain of his Gypsy Scouts, slipped into the tent with a worried expression on his face.
“Yes?” he asked.
“General Rudolfo, we’ve just received word that Overseer Sethbert of the Entrolusian City States approaches.”
Rudolfo felt anger rise. “Just?”
Gregoric paled. “Their scouts are magicked, Lord.”
Rudolfo leaped to his feet, reaching for his thin, long sword. “Bring the camp to Third Alarm,” he shouted. He turned on the metal man. “Isaak, you will wait here.”
Isaak nodded.
Then General Rudolfo of the Wandering Army, Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses, raced from the tent bellowing for his armor and horse.
Petronus
Petronus sat before his small fire and listened to the night around him. He’d ridden the day at a measured pace, not pushing his old horse faster or farther than it needed. He’d finally stopped and made camp when the sky purpled.
Not far off, a coyote bayed and another joined in. Petronus sipped bitterroot tea with a generous pinch of Holga the Bay Woman’s herbal bone-ache remedy boiled into it. It washed the old man in warmth deeper than the dancing flames could touch.
He watched the northwest. The smoke had largely dissipated throughout the day. By now, he thought, Rudolfo and Sethbert would both be there with their armies, ready to assist if there was anyone or anything left to help.
Of course, he doubted they would find anything and he suspected he knew why. The longer he thought about it, the more sure the old man became. And each league that carried him closer to Windwir paralleled an inner journey across the landscape of his memory.
“We’ve found another Y’Zir fragment, Father,” Arch-Scholar Ryhan had said during the private portion of the Expeditionary Debriefing.
Petronus was forty years younger then, more of an idealist, but even then he’d known the risk. “You’re certain?”
The arch-scholar sipped his wine, careful not to spill it on the white carpets of Petronus’s office. “Yes. It is a nearly perfect fragment, with overlap between the Straupheim parchment and the Harston letter. It’s only a matter of time before we have the entire text.”
Petronus felt his jaw clench. “What precautions are you taking?”
“We’re keeping all of the parchments separate. Under lock and guard.”
Petronus nodded. “Good. They’re not safe even for cataloging and tra
nslation.”
“For now, yes,” Ryhan said. “But young Charles, that new Acolyte of Mechanics from the Emerald Coasts, thinks he’s found a way to power the mechoservitor he’s reconstructed using firestones. He says according to Rufello’s Notes and Specifications, these mechanicals can be erased after a day’s work, told in advance what to do and what to say, and given even the most complex instructions.”
Petronus had seen the demonstration. They’d needed a massive furnace to generate the power, but for three minutes, Charles had asked the blocky, sharp-cornered metal man he’d built to move his hands, to recite scripture and to answer complex mathematical equations for the Pope and his closest advisors. Another secret they had mined from the days before that they would keep close to their hearts, releasing it to the world when they felt it was ready for the knowledge.
“They could read it,” the arch-scholar said. “Under careful instruction. If Charles is right, a mechoservitor could even be instructed to summarize the text without out reproducing it verbatim.”
“If all of the parchments were ever found…” Petronus let the words trail off. He shook his head. “We’d do better to just destroy what we’ve found,” Petronus said. “Even a metal puppet dances on a human string.”
The look on the arch-scholar’s face when he said that was the beginning of Petronus’s self-inflicted slide away from Androfrancine grace.
Coyote song brought Petronus back from the past. The fire was burning down now and he pushed more wood onto it. His fists went white as he clenched them and looked to the northwest again.
They had found the fragments of Xhum Y’Zir’s spell.
They had not been careful.
They had unleashed Death upon themselves.
And if Petronus was right about the power of those words, there was nothing left of all their labor. The Androfrancines had spent two thousand years grave-robbing from the Former World and there would be precious little now to show for it.
The rage of P’Andro Whym fell upon him and Petronus bellowed at the sky.
