by Ken Scholes
“What does Rudolfo get out of this for himself?”
She could hear the Scout’s smile around his reply. “He said that when you asked that question, I should tell you that one dance with the sunrise will warm him all the days of his life.”
She chuckled. “I see. A king who wishes he were a poet.”
“We will be waiting to the west for you, should you accept General Rudolfo’s offer of aid.”
And then she was alone in the dark again. Once more, the bell didn’t ring.
Jin Li Tam didn’t need any time to make her decision. It had already been made before the scout arrived. But she’d wondered earlier if Rudolfo would make the third gesture, and the scout in her tent was sufficient. Typically, there would be less subterfuge involved, perhaps even a formal gathering. But each of Rudolfo’s three gestures bore a subtlety that could be open to interpretation. The first had been the offer to dance in the presence of Sethbert. The second had been another message he had tapped into her wrist, the last words: And I would never call you consort.
She had her third gesture. If there had been only one or two gestures within the night, it would have meant nothing. But the third gesture contained yet another hidden message, and she knew for certain now that this Rudolfo was a Whymer Maze of hidden paths behind secret doors. That last hidden message was clearly present, wrapped in the cloak of courtesy to her father. It was the third gesture of a night, a clear point made with subtle grace.
Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses had announced himself as a potential suitor, following the ancient kin-clave rite prescribed for a Lord seeking alliance between Houses in order to defeat a common foe.
That meant that if she wished to, she could invoke the Providence of Kin-Clave, and by doing so, state without words that she was accepting him as a suitor.
Jin Li Tam wondered how much of this her father already knew, and decided that it had probably been his idea in the first place.
Chapter 6
Rudolfo
Rudolfo slept for two hours in the back of a supply wagon, dreaming of the redheaded Lady, before Third Alarm woke him. He leaped from the pile of empty sacks, drawing his sword and dropping lightly to the ground.
He raced past mustering soldiers and stopped at his own tent. He’d long ago learned the value of not using his own bed or tent in the field. Gregoric stood waiting.
“Well?” Rudolfo asked.
Gregoric grinned. “You were correct, Lord. Entrolusian scouts. Magicked.”
“Did they see what they came to see?”
Gregoric nodded. “And left quickly when I called the alarm.”
“Very good. That will give them cause to scamper quickly home. And our own scouts?”
“Also magicked and right behind them.”
Magicked scouts were nearly impossible to spot when you did not expect them. But Rudolfo had expected them. They had come. They had seen Isaak. They had left. And five of his best and bravest Gypsy Scouts had followed after.
“Very well. I will want to hear their report personally.”
“Yes, Lord.”
Rudolfo turned and entered the tent. The metal man’s eyes glowed softly in the dark. “Isaak, are you well?”
The metal man whirred to life. The eyes blinked rapidly. “Yes, Lord.”
Rudolfo walked over to him and squatted down. “I do not believe you are responsible for the devastation of Windwir.”
“You indicated that may be the case. I only know what I remember.”
Rudolfo thought about this for a moment. “What you don’t remember is possibly more relevant. The missing time between seeking Brother Charles and finding yourself in the streets uttering Xhum Y’zir’s spell.” He looked at his sword, watched the light from Isaak’s eyes play out on its burnished surface. “I do not think it was a malfunction. Sethbert-the Overseer of the Entrolusian City States-has a man who knows how to write those metal scrolls. He ev Sscrethen has a metal man of his own.”
“I do not understand. The Androfrancines and their Gray Guard are so careful-”
“Guards can be purchased. Gates can be slipped. Keys can be stolen.” Rudolfo patted the metal man’s knee. “You are quite a wondrous spectacle, my friend, but I suspect you understand little the capacity we humans have for good or ill.”
“I’ve read about it,” the metal man said with a sigh. “But you’re right; I do not understand it.”
“I hope you never do,” Rudolfo said. “But on to other things. I have questions for you.”
“I will answer truthfully, Lord.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Good. How were you damaged?”
Isaak’s metal eyelids flashed surprise. “Why, your men attacked me, Lord. I thought you knew this.”
“My men found you in a crater and brought you to me straightaway.”
“No, the first ones.”
Rudolfo stroked his beard. “Tell me more.”
“The fire had fallen, the lightning had blasted, and I returned to the library seeking Brother Charles or someone who could terminate me for my crimes. Nothing remained but ash and charred stone. I began calling for help, and your men came for me with nets and chains. I sought to evade and they attacked me. I fell into the crater. Then the others came and brought me to you.”
Rudolfo offered a grim smile. “I wondered. Now I know more. By morning, I will know all.”
Isaak looked up. “Lord, you bid me remind you to return to your question about the removal of my work-related memories.”
“Ah, that.” Rudolfo stood. “Perhaps it will come to nothing. Perhaps tomorrow, we will go down an altogether different path.” He extended his hand to the metal man, who took it. The metal fingers were cool to his touch. “But if the winds of fate allow it, I would have work for you in my forest manor, Isaak.”
“Work, Lord?”
Rudolfo smiled. “Yes. The greatest treasure in the world lies between your metal ears. I would have you write it all down for me.”
rldeight="0em" width="1em" align="justify"›Isaak released his hand. His eyes went hot and steam shot out from him. “I will not, Lord. I will not be anyone’s weapon again.”
For a brief moment, Rudolfo tasted fear in his mouth. A metallic taste. “No, no, no.” He reached out, took up the hand again. “Never that, Isaak. But the other bits. The poetry, the plays, the histories, the philosophies, the mythologies, the maps. Everything the Androfrancine library protected and preserved… at least what bits you know. I would not have these pass from our world because of a buffoon’s ambition.”
“That is a monumental task, Lord, for a single servitor.”
“I believe,” Rudolfo said, “that you may have some help.”
The magicked Gypsy Scouts returned from the Entrolusian camp before dawn. They carried a bound, gagged, hooded man between them, deposited him in a chair and removed his hood. Another scout put a large leather pouch on the table.
Servers laid breakfast on the table-oranges, pomegranates, cakes made with nuts and honey, berries with liquored syrup-while Rudolfo studied their guest. He was a smallish man with delicate fingers and a broad face. His eyes bulged and veins stood out on his neck and forehead.
Isaak stared. Rudolfo patted his arm. “He looks familiar to you?”
The metal man clicked. “He does, Lord. He was Brother Charles’s apprentice.”
Rudolfo nodded. He sat at the head of the table and nibbled at a cake, washing it down with chilled peach wine.
The Gypsy Scouts gave their report; it was brief.
“So how many do they have?”
“Thirteen in total, Lord,” the chief scout answered. “They are in a tent near the center of his camp. We found him sleeping among them.”
“Thirteen,” Rudolfo said, stroking his beard. “How many mechoservitors did the Androfrancines have, Isaak?”
“That is all of them, lord.”
He waved to the nearest Scout. “Remove his gag.”
The man blustered and flus
hed, his eyes wild and his mouth working like a landed tr Ske "›
Rudolfo stabbed a slice of orange with a small silver fork. “I will ask you questions; you will answer them. Otherwise you will not speak.”
The man nodded.
Rudolfo pointed at Isaak with his fork. “Do you recognize this metal man?”
The man nodded again, his face now pale.
“Did you change this mechoservitor’s script on the orders of Overseer Sethbert of the Entrolusian City States?”
“I… I did. Overseer Sethbert-”
Rudolfo snapped his fingers. A scout drew a slim dagger, placing its tip at the man’s throat. “Just yes or no for now.”
The man swallowed. “Yes.”
The knife eased up.
Rudolfo selected another slice of orange and popped it into his mouth. “Did you do this terrible thing for money?”
The man’s eyes filled with tears. His jaw tensed. Slowly, he nodded again.
Rudolfo leaned forward. “And do you understand exactly what you did?”
The Androfrancine apprentice sobbed. When he didn’t nod right away, the scout refocused him on Rudolfo’s question with a point of the blade. “Y-yes, Lord.”
Rudolfo chewed a bit of pomegranate. He kept his voice level and low. “Do you wish mercy for this terrible crime?”
The sobbing escalated. A low whine rose to a howl so full of misery, so full of despair that it lay heavy on the air.
“Do you,” Rudolfo said again, his voice even quieter, “want mercy for your terrible crime?”
“I didn’t know it would work, Lord. I swear to you. And none of us thought that if it did work it would be so… so utterly, so…”
Rudolfo raised his hand and his eyebrows. The man stopped. “How could you know? How could anyone know? Xhum Y’zir has been dead over two thousand years. And his so-called Age of Laughing Madness has lo SMadcoung passed.” Rudolfo carefully selected another honeyed cake, nibbling at its corners. “So my question remains: Do you wish mercy?”
The man nodded.
“Very well. You have one opportunity and only one. I can not say the same for your liege.” Rudolfo looked over at the metal man. His eyes flashed and a slight trail of steam leaked from the corners of his mouth. “In a few moments, I am going to leave you here with my best Gypsy Scouts and my metallic friend, Isaak. I want you to very slowly, very clearly and in great detail, explain everything you know about scripting, maintaining and repairing Androfrancine mechoservitors.” Rudolfo stood. “You only have one chance and you only have a few hours. If you do not satisfy me, you will spend the rest of your natural days in chains, on Tormentor’s Row for all the known world to see, while my Physicians of Penitent Torture peel away your skin with salted knives and wait for it to grow back.” He tossed back the rest of his wine. “You will spend the rest of your days in urine and feces and blood, with the screams of young children in your ears and the genocide of a city on your soul.”
The man vomited now, choking foul-smelling bile onto his tunic.
Rudolfo smiled. “I’m so glad you understand me.” He paused at the tent flap. “Isaak, pay careful attention to the man.”
Outside, he waved for Gregoric. “Bring me a bird.”
He wrote the message himself. It was a simple, one-word question. After he wrote it, he tied it to the bird’s foot with the green thread of peace, but it felt like a lie. He whispered a destination to the bird and pressed his lips briefly to its small, soft head. Then he threw it at the sky and the sky caught it, sent it flapping south to the Entrolusian camp.
He whispered the question he had written. It sounded empty, but he whispered it again. “Why?”
Neb
Neb didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until he felt a hand shaking him awake. He opened his eyes, jerking alert. The redheaded woman knelt next to him. She was wearing a dark cloak, but the hood was pushed back and her hair was up.
She placed a finger over her lips. When he nodded, she spoke in a low voice. “War is coming. It’s not safe here. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“Sethbert destroyed Windwir and is giddy with his handiwork. He’s keeping you alive so that your story can entertain him. Do you understand?”
Neb swallowed. He’d wonder S#82"›‹ about="about"›
“I’m leaving now. I want you to come with me.”
He nodded, scrambling out of the cot.
“Stay near me,” she said, drawing a pouch out from under her shirt where it hung on a cord around her neck. She loosed the drawstrings and poured a handful of powder into her hand. She cast it at her forehead, her shoulders and her feet, then licked the remainder of the powder from the palm of her hand.
Neb watched as her eyes rolled back, then watched as she faded to a shadow in front of his eyes. For a moment, he thought she might magick him as well, and the prospect terrified him. He’d read about scout-magicks and knew how they could affect the untrained and inexperienced. But then she sealed the pouch and dropped it back inside her shirt.
“Follow me,” she said. She unraveled a silk string from her wrist and attached it to his wrist as well.
Holding the string, he moved with her as she slipped out of the tent and into the predawn morning. Neb followed her into the darker places of the darkened camp, sliding past tents where soldiers snored and mumbled. He did the best he could to keep track of where they were, but it seemed she changed direction just as he would get oriented.
Finally, they left the camp altogether and moved silently through the forest. As they ran, the redheaded woman’s words sank into him.
Sethbert destroyed Windwir. Those words kept at him, pressing him, prodding him, but he did not know why. He’d heard the soldiers earlier, but agreed that Androfrancine curiosity was a more likely culprit than the Overseer, madness or not. But now, this woman not only believed it, but also said war was coming, and she could have just left. But she hadn’t-she had come to him first, taking more risk onto herself than she needed.
Neb trusted that.
Sethbert destroyed Windwir. Again, it pressed and prodded. Something behind that wall of words crumbled a bit more, and light peeked through.
Sethbert.
When it hit him, Neb stopped short and the string went taut. The redheaded woman stopped, and in the gray light Neb could see the faintest shimmer of her as she crouched.
“Why have you stopped? We’re nearly there.”
He wished he could open his mouth and explain to her why he couldn’t go with her. He wi Sithze=shed he could tell her about the bolt of electricity that passed through him when he realized the truth.
Sethbert destroyed Windwir.
Neb hadn’t really killed his father-Sethbert had. And it changed everything.
Because of that, he couldn’t leave with her now.
Because of that, he had to go back and kill Sethbert.
Petronus
As the sun rose behind him in a birdless sky, Petronus crested the ridge and looked down on the Desolation of Windwir.
Nothing could have prepared him for it. He’d crested this ridge hundreds of times, riding out and back on various assignments for the Order. Certainly he’d known this time that he wouldn’t see the familiar sights. The large ships at the docks, low in the water with cargo bound for the Entrolusian Delta. The wide, high stone walls that encircled the various quarters that made up the world’s greatest city. The spires of the cathedrals and of the Great Library, colors waving in the morning breeze. The houses and shops outside the city gates, nestled up against the walls like calves against their mother.
Petronus slid from the saddle and let his horse tend itself. He stood, shaking, studying the scene that unfolded before him.
He’d known better than to expect any of these things, but he’d thought surely there’d be something familiar to him here.
There was not.
The charred ruins were scattered across the field, and there was no clear delineati
on where the wreckage of the city stopped and the wreckage of the outlying areas began. Flecked with impact craters and mounds of black rubble, the landscape stretched out and away, ending abruptly at the river’s edge. It was bordered by hills to the west and south, and Petronus could see the smoke and flags of the Gypsy camp nestled between foothills.
There was no sign of the Entrolusian camp, but knowing Sethbert, it was hidden away, within reach but not easy reach. A man seldom fell far afield of his father, and from everything he’d heard, Sethbert was every bit as paranoid and problematic as the man who’d raised him and trained him up into his current role. Petronus had once had Aubert removed from the Papal Residence under the watchful eyes of the Gray Guard for threatening the Pope’s hospitality staff after accusing them of some kind of treachery or another.
Of course, the same theory would apply to Rudolfo. He’d known the father well enough. Jakob was a fair albeit ruthless man who ruled his Ninefold Forest Houses with a blend of Androfrancine sensibility and Snsih. uncompromising attention to the Rites of Kin-Clave. He hadn’t balked at putting heretics on Tormentor’s Row… but neither had he been willing to allow the Order access to those prisoners.
Petronus suspected that Rudolfo was made of similar stuff as his father, too. He’d been a boy when Petronus had set into motion his transition out of power. But soon after, Jakob died and that boy was forced to early manhood, taking up the turban of his fallen father. The old man had heard a bit here or there, most notably that he’d stood with the Freehold of the Emerald Coasts in their decision to embargo the City States when they announced their annexation of the Gulf of Shylar and its free cities. Rudolfo had earned a reputation as a brilliant strategist and a competent swordsman during the skirmishes that followed.
He gathered what little he knew about both men and stored it away for future use.
Even now, he told himself, in the face of this devastation, you’re scheming and plotting, old man. But why? He’d needed to see for himself that it was gone. He couldn’t wait for the birds or the other messengers-no one’s description, written or spoken, would’ve been good enough. He needed to see it himself.
