The Ingenious

by Darius Hinks

  To her shame, Isten realized that Alzen’s words were almost identical to her own argument when she was talking to Gombus. She was about to ask Alzen something else when a low, mournful sound rang out across the forest. It sounded like the cry of a wounded animal.

  “They’re here!” said Phrater Herbrus, hobbling past Isten, leaning heavily on a copper sceptre, using it as a walking stick.

  “Man the walls,” he said, waving at the stairs. His words were stern but his expression was bleak.

  The hiramites leapt to obey, kicking the other soldiers awake and clattering down the stairs, drawing their falcatas.

  “Over here!” snapped Herbrus, waving for the laborators to follow him as he approached a wide iron brazier at the back of the room. It was a simple iron bowl, a few feet in diameter and perched on a slender pedestal.

  As the laborators rushed to his side, Isten hesitated by the fire, looking through the window. The low bellowing sound was growing louder. The whole valley seemed to shake. “What is that?” she whispered.

  “You too!” cried Phrater Herbrus, waving his sceptre at her. “Get over here, quickly.” The old man’s face was twisted in a grimace and Isten wondered what could have scared one of the Elect. She looked back out of the window. The hiramites had formed into lines behind the stockade, their swords drawn, and the ground was definitely shaking now; she could feel it through her feet.

  “Now!” howled Phrater Herbrus, and Isten had no option but to obey.

  The other laborators had all gripped the edge of the brazier, so Isten did the same, finding a gap in the circle and holding the battered iron in both hands. The metal was cool and full of lifeless ash. Isten wondered what was expected of her.

  He’s about to perform a transfiguration, said Alzen in her mind. You just need to steady the brazier. I don’t know what he intends to do, but he hasn’t prepared sufficiently. The old fool will burn the place down if he’s not careful.

  Phrater Herbrus was glancing anxiously at the nearest window, then began taking powders from a row of small pewter boxes arranged around the edge of the brazier. He muttered unintelligible phrases as he scattered the powders across the ash.

  Almost immediately, Isten felt the bowl start to move, vibrating and humming like a tuning fork, causing her arms to tremble.

  None of the laborators showed any surprise, so she continued gripping the brazier. The others were echoing the phrater’s words, droning them like a prayer, so she moved her lips, pretending to join her voice to theirs.

  From outside the tower, she heard a tearing, smashing sound. It was shockingly loud, like an avalanche. Isten expected the phrater to react but he remained hunched over the glowing embers, still scattering powders and chanting.

  The charcoal in the brazier was now blazing and, to Isten’s shock, she saw a shape starting to form. A bubble was rising in the centre of the brazier, hissing and smoking as it neared the phrater’s trembling hand.

  The was another crash outside and then the clash of swords and the roar of battle cries.

  The brazier was growing hot but Isten felt another heat, coursing from her head, down her neck and into her arms. She felt a dizzying rush as Alzen channelled power through her, joining his skill to Herbrus’s.

  Herbrus gasped in shock, then laughed, looking relieved. “I’ve managed it!” he cried, staring in delight at the brazier. “One last time!”

  The mound of embers shifted and rolled, turning around.

  Isten was so enraptured that it took her a moment to realize what the shape was. There was a man trapped in the charcoal, twisted in agony and as charred as the bodies outside, but somehow alive. He tried to scream, but all that emerged from his throat were plumes of smoke. His eyes had burned away, but he reached straight towards Phrater Herbrus, seeming to sense where he was.

  Herbrus leant back as the burning man grasped feebly at the air with heat-warped fingers.

  What the fuck is that? thought Isten as Alzen’s sorcery faded from her body.

  An Ignorant Man. Alzen sounded pleased. Herbrus is spent, he never would have managed this without my help.

  Isten looked at the struggling shape in horror. It was writhing and shivering in agony. That’s an Ignorant Man?

  Yes. Or, at least, that’s the animus of an Ignorant Man. The fuel that drives it. Its soul.

  I thought they were machines.

  They are. Machines powered by this. Even the Curious Men do not have the power to bestow sentience. But we can capture it. And we can use it to drive our constructs.

  Herbrus raised his sceptre and cried out another command. Flames sprang from the brazier, bathing Isten in heat and enveloping the man thrashing at its centre. It was a surreal sight. The bowl of the brazier was only about a foot deep. There was no logical way it could have held a man. Yet there he was, rising from the inferno, visible from the waist up, restrained by flames that had formed into shimmering bonds.

  The flames tightened around the man until he was unable to move, spitting embers and trailing fumes, rigid with pain.

  “It is done,” gasped Herbrus, staggering back from the brazier. He collapsed to the floor and his sceptre slipped from his grip, clanging on the cold stone.

  Some laborators rushed to help him, but others rushed over to the wall to peer out through the windows.

  Isten did the same but froze in horror at the sight.

  The stockade was in ruins, smashed apart and burning, filling the courtyard with waves of black smoke. It was also drenched in blood – gallons of the stuff, far more than could have come from the fight that was taking place. Hiramites were reeling through the carnage, lashing out with their falcatas or lying butchered and bleeding on the ground. It was a confusing scene. The headhunters Isten had seen earlier were fighting alongside the hiramites, swinging their axes with furious oaths, but there were dozens more headhunters leaping through the breach and hacking their kinsmen down, trying to reach the tower.

  Isten barely registered the desperate scrum inside the blood-drenched stockade. She was staring in horror at the battle taking place in the trees. One of the Ignorant Men had come to life and strode into the forest, smashing a wide path through the boughs. It was now looming over the valley like a metal god, heat smouldering from its joints and liquid metal spiralling around its chest. After seeing the man in the brazier, Isten finally understood the aura of violence that radiated from the Ignorant Men.

  The metal colossus had one arm raised above its head with its fist locked around a fountain of dark, swirling blood. The blood was lashing and coiling around the Ignorant Man, battering it with thick cords of gore, and Isten realized it was a creature of some kind. The monster was almost as huge as the Ignorant Man and, as it fought, it let out the same, keening howl Isten had heard earlier. She realized that it must be the being that had destroyed the stockade.

  A mouth opened in the column of blood and vomited crimson into the Ignorant Man’s face. The blast hit with such force that the colossus staggered backwards, toppling trees as it crashed through the rain.

  The fist that was locked around the blood monster flashed white and the creature howled again, thrashing wildly in the Ignorant Man’s grip.

  Phrater Herbrus had joined the laborators at the window and he was leaning against the embrasure, triumph in his eyes.

  Isten backed away, not wanting him to notice her. She rushed to another window to keep watching the battle. From this vantage point, she could see the river. She muttered a curse as she saw that the Sign of the Sun was preparing to disembark, the crew dashing back and forth on the deck, keen to be away now their cargo had been unloaded.

  What is it? asked Alzen.

  The boat’s about to leave.

  Then go! Now’s your chance! Everyone is watching the fight.

  She looked around. There were no soldiers left in the tower, and Herbrus and his laborators were all staring out of the windows at the giants crashing back and forth throu
gh the trees.

  She bolted down the stairs and found no one there.

  The crates will be branded with a serpent swallowing its tail.

  “I see them,” gasped Isten, racing across the room and slapping her palms against the sodden wood. “What do I do now?”

  Alzen flooded her body with power. It jolted through her with such force that she almost fell, but she managed to keep her hands pressed against the crates as golden ringlets erupted from beneath her hands, tumbling across the wood and splashing up her arms. The heat in the back of her skull flared and Isten laughed as metal billowed across her skin. A storm ripped through her fingers. It was incredible. She could feel the weapons inside the crates, boiling and changing, reforming at her command.

  Then it was gone. Alzen extinguished the power and Isten reeled away from the crates, bereft as his sorcery haemorrhaged from her veins.

  It’s done, he said. Get to the boat.

  She ran from the tower, straight into the middle of the battle. Hiramites and headhunters were reeling through banks of rain and smoke, lunging and hacking at each other as the Ignorant Man loomed overhead, wrestling with the fountain of blood.

  Isten sprinted through the struggling figures, weaving and leaping as she made for the breach in the stockade. The headhunters had all fought their way in towards the tower and the way seemed clear.

  She had almost reached the stockade when one of the headhunters turned and charged across the muddy flagstones towards her.

  He was just like the men she had hired in Athanor – hulking and savage, his body stretched and misshapen by the heads he had sewn into his skin. He was covered in wounds and drenched in blood, but showed no signs of flagging. As he reached Isten he planted his feet firmly in the gore, rocked back on his heels and hefted his axe at her head.

  Isten ducked beneath the blow and rolled across the floor.

  The headhunter howled a curse and lunged after her.

  Isten thudded into the corpse of a hiramite and, as she leapt to her feet, she grabbed a falcata from the dead man and brought it up in time to parry the next axe blow.

  The axe hit with such force that she tumbled back over the corpse, but she managed to cling onto the sword. As the headhunter launched himself after her, she lashed out with a backhanded strike, ripping another scar across his chest.

  As he fell back, clutching the wound, she leapt to her feet and continued sprinting towards the break in the stockade, still clutching the falcata.

  She glanced back over her shoulder as she ran and saw the headhunter chasing after her.

  He pounded across the heaps of bloody wreckage, his face locked in a snarl, but then he halted, confused, as a shadow fell over the courtyard.

  The ground shook as the Ignorant Man strode back down the hillside towards the tower. The blood creature was hanging from the giant’s fist, trailing like a bundle of intestines, lifeless and silent.

  The hiramites cheered and surged forwards, driving the shocked headhunters back towards the stockade.

  Isten took her chance and bolted out through the breach and down the hillside towards the river.

  The Sign of the Sun’s captain was waiting on the riverbank with a few of his crewmen, watching the battle at the tower with a troubled expression.

  As he saw the Ignorant Man return from the trees, the captain nodded and made a decision, waving for his crew to board the boat. “The phrater has everything under control,” he yelled. “Weigh anchor!”

  “Wait!” cried Isten as she stumbled and slid down the muddy hillside.

  The captain had already seen her and his crewmen left the boarding ramps in place until she had safely scrambled onto the deck.

  “Quick as you like!” he yelled to his crew, ignoring her as she fell gasping onto the boat. “I don’t want one scratch on the Sign.”

  Engines rattled into life below the deck and the boat lurched away from the riverbank.

  Isten climbed to her feet, staggered over to the railings and looked back at the battle. The headhunters were still howling and lunging but the hiramites were driving them back out of the courtyard, emboldened by the presence of the Ignorant Man, who was striding away from them, hurling gouts of liquid gold into the trees with one of its hands, and still clutching the dead monster in its other.

  Isten felt a flood of relief as she realized the headhunters would be driven back. Then she remembered the bodies that littered the hillside and shook her head, ashamed at herself for feeling so victorious.

  What about the next attack? she thought. We’ve stolen their weapons.

  There won’t be any more attacks. The Ignorant Man has far more power than Herbrus could have given it on his own. Herbrus will use it to make sure there’s no one left to be a threat.

  The Ignorant Man was wading off through the forest, hurling metal bolts into the trees and clutching its kill.

  Isten looked from the giant to the bodies on the shore with a dreadful sinking feeling.

  19

  She pictured it all burning: towers and trees, streets, everything curling into a brittle husk, the river boiling and the windows melting. She imagined Athanor dying how the people of Brauron had died, eaten by fat barrels of flame that rolled through masonry and wood, filling the sky with soot. It was mesmerizing. She felt the Exiles gathering around her in the dark but couldn’t steal her gaze from the flames. She imagined that she had lit the fire, that it was her mind wreaking the destruction. It felt glorious. It felt like Alzen, breathing magic through her skin.

  The Botanical Quarter was never quiet. It always seemed to be having a deranged conversation with itself. It was two hours before dawn, and as the Aroc Brothers crept through its narrow, crevasse-like streets, a woman was screaming abuse from an upper window as someone else sang, drunkenly, on one of the walkways. Neither seemed aware of the other, and punctuating the din was the sound of someone sharpening a metal blade in a series of slow, methodical, screeches. Like all of the Botanical Quarter, the street felt like a tunnel, canopied with a mesh of metal, spine-like projections that reached overhead, stretching from lintels and window frames, grasping at the buildings opposite.

  At the head of the Aroc Brothers was a particularly massive specimen called Zhoon. He waved the others on with his crossbow, gesturing at a crossroads up ahead, just a few streets from the Alembeck Temple. Zhoon had been forced to kill several of his brothers before he was accepted as a suitable replacement for Sayal, and his clear, amorphous frame was networked with recent scars. Nevertheless, he was grinning as he approached the crossroads. He had made a deal that would make his position unshakeable. By dawn, every one of the Exiles would be dead and his position would be secured.

  They reached the crossroads. There was a single mandrel-fire, hanging from a broken shop front, blinking fitfully across the open sewer at the side of the road.

  Zhoon waved for the others to wait behind him, keeping in the shadows, as he walked over to the effluence and dropped to one knee, peering into the filth.

  For a moment, he saw nothing, and wondered if he had been betrayed. Then, with a slurping sound, a shape began rising from the muck. It looked like a pile of dinner plates, strung together and raised up by an invisible hand, spilling muck and flies as they rotated. Zhoon grimaced at the smell and stepped back.

  The jumble of flat shards rose until it was almost as tall as Zhoon, then turned to reveal the vaguely humanoid shape of a weazen.

  “Are you Tok?” demanded Zhoon.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” it said, its voice a dry scrape.

  Zhoon struggled to hide his revulsion at speaking to the creature. The weazens ran drugs into the Zechen baths and had been in direct competition with the Aroc Brothers for years. The last time they met, it had been a bloody fight. “Where are the others?” he demanded.

  Tok smiled. “I wanted to make sure you were here first.” The weazen turned with a series of clicking sounds and gestured at the sew
er. The liquid boiled and rolled as dozens of weazens rose from the rank-smelling liquid, dripping muck and moving with the same jerking twitches as Tok. They were surrounded by flies and midges and seemed to vanish every time their plates were turned side on.

  Zhoon nodded at the doors of the Alembeck Temple. “My contact has made sure the doors will be unlocked. There will be a few guards, but most of the Exiles will be asleep.”

  “I hear they’re making a mess of everything,” said Tok. “They took control of the fights the Kardus family used to run over on Caspingum Street. And when the Kardus family tried to stop them, the Exiles made short work of them.” The creature nodded at Zhoon’s crossbow. “They have weapons like yours. But they also have an army of psychotic savages who do whatever Isten asks of them. They’re supplying people with cinnabar at a fraction of the price you’re–”

  “I know all this,” snapped Zhoon. He tried to control his rage and waved at his brothers, gathered in the gloom behind him. He had brought every last member of the gang, calling in help from every corner of the district. They had taken heavy losses since the death of Sayal, but gathered en masse like this they still numbered nearly a hundred. “With my brothers and your gang combined, it won’t matter who’s helping Isten.”

  “You have the money?”

  Zhoon waved to one of his brothers, who rushed over with a crate and handed it to the weazen. Tok examined the contents, nodded, then passed the crate to one of its muck-drenched companions.

  Zhoon marched across the street towards the temple, waving for everyone else to follow.

  “There’s a way in round the back that should also be unlocked,” he said, looking at Tok.

  The weazen nodded and the strange-looking creatures vanished into the shadows at the side of the temple.