The Machine God (The Drifting Isle Chronicles)

by MeiLin Miranda

  "I already told you what happened," she said.

  "But I need to know more. I need to know everything--what the city was like, what your life was like, what Vatterbroch did. You will be helping everyone immensely if you do. You mentioned someone named Birdie. Was she another Machine God like you?"

  "I'm not a Machine God," said Alleine, her voice angry; the red light within the cube flared and subsided. "I was just inside one. Birdie wasn't in one like that. She was in a different kind of one."

  Adewole mopped his brow with a clean handkerchief. He was not prone to sweating, but now he grew clammy, damp and miserable even in the dry Ossuary air. "Was she another little girl like you?"

  "No, she was a bird, that's why I called her Birdie," Alleine said patiently. "She said she'd been a pigeon before. Or, she didn't know the word pigeon. She showed me a picture in my head of a bird like her."

  "So birds spoke then," said Adewole.

  "Everyone knows birds can't talk. Well, except for Birdie, and she couldn't, until I helped her."

  "How did you help her?"

  "Before Master put me in here he did what he did to me with a bird first. He said she was a proof of…proof of…"

  "Proof of concept?"

  "Yes," she said, pleased. "That's what he called it. He didn't make a Bone Lyre, though. I think he knew he'da killed Birdie before he could finish it. I wish I'd died then…" Her voice faltered. "I thought Birdie was a broken toy when I first came to the workshop. She never moved right, she just sorta lay on one side and scrabbled her feet in the air every once in a while."

  A thought came to him: the gardeners' odd-metal knife was shaped like a feather. "Tell me, now, was she made of metal like the Machine God's body? Gray, with swirled patterns upon it?"

  "Just like the Machine God, uh-huh. Master said he'd worked out a way to make the metal so you couldn't break it, and that's why it looked like that."

  "I might have found part of Birdie. I will see if I can show it to you some time. So you said you helped her."

  "Not until he put me in this heart here--that's what he called it. When I was still me, I couldn't help anyone. But when he put me in here…I don't think he knew it, and I sure never told him," she whispered, "but I could do stuff once I got in here. Magic."

  Here was his chance. "Alleine, can you do magic now?"

  "I dunno. Should I try something? Tell me something to do, something where I won't hurt anyone."

  Adewole's eyes rested on a faintly sparkling rock the size of an angler bug. "There is a--" What was her word for lightcrystal? He hazarded a guess. "A rock of light, just to your left, by the wall. Can you feel it?"

  "You mean a sun crystal?" A red mist tendril crept along the wall until it found the lightcrystal. "What now?"

  "Lift it." The lightcrystal trembled and slowly, painfully rose six inches into the air. "Now, can you bring it to me?"

  The crystal teetered through the air, just clearing the floor, until it hit a rock; the red mist dissolved, and the crystal dropped into the dirt. "Nope. I haven't eaten enough, I think maybe. Please don't feed me," she pleaded, "I don't want to do magic any more. Bad things happen."

  Adewole blew out a long, relieved breath. "No, you do not need to do magic any more. Tell me what you did before, how you helped Birdie."

  "Well, once I was in the heart, I could hear Birdie. She cried all the time, it was so hard to listen to--well, birds don't cry, but do you know what I mean? It was a feeling like crying. I have it too, but hers was worse. She didn't know what happened, she was on'y a bird. She couldn't figure out how to work the metal bird body, and it scared her. I just sorta felt all that, like pictures in my head except I didn't have one…it's hard to explain. I scared her, I think she thought she was trapped and I was gonna hurt her. I tried to tell her what happened, but she couldn't understand me. So-o-o, I made it so she could."

  "Did you use a spell?" said Adewole.

  "I just thought real hard." Creating sentience with a thought--Adewole almost broke out in astonished, frightened laughter. "Anyway," Alleine resumed, "after that I told her what happened, and we figured out how to work the metal bird thing together. Once she could fly, I opened a window where Master wouldn't notice--just like I tried to move the sun crystal--and she got out. Master never knew, or if he did, he didn't care. She come back and tell me all kinds of things going on. I guess it was a bad year for food, because she come back and said the other birds told her they was hungry."

  "You said birds could not talk."

  Alleine paused. "I just figured she talked to them in bird talk. Anyway, she said times was bad. I said, what do they want to eat, and she said, most birds like bugs. So there was a little fisher beetle nearby. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. I just thought hard and it grew bigger, and then I thought about there always being lots of them. Birdie told me later there was lots of 'em after that all over the place, and the birds was happy. It made me feel better. It still hurt, but I felt better."

  "Let me tell you something now, child," said Adewole, trying to contain his excitement, "you may not have meant to, but you made all the birds in Cherholtz like Birdie."

  "All of them?"

  "All of them. Some remained behind on the ground when the city rose. Little sparrows beg me for biscuit crumbs when I sit in cafes. The talking birds are spreading, too. They have just begun to reach Jero, which is not very fun for us because we Jerians like to eat birds."

  "Oh, I do too. When I can get it, I like chicken a lot. Or I did."

  "We will not be able to eat chickens soon in Jero, the chicks are beginning to talk."

  "Oh dear," said Alleine. "That's not what I meant to do at all."

  Adewole smiled in spite of himself. "I have a talking bird friend. She is an owl, named Ofira."

  "An owl?" she said, happy excitement in her voice for the first time. "Can I meet her?"

  "Perhaps. I shall see what I can do."

  "That's a pretty name, Ofira. I never heard it before."

  "It was my sister's," said Adewole, sobering all too quickly.

  "The one my age?"

  "Yes."

  "What's she like?"

  "She was…" He cleared his throat and tried again. "She was a bright, happy girl. She loved oranges with her coffee. I would bring her pretty little trinkets--see," he said, pulling out his watch and forgetting Alleine had no eyes, "this little pink and yellow bead, our mother gave it to her before she died, but Ofira insisted on braiding it into my hair. She said it was good luck." Tears stung and burned in his eyes, and he blinked hard. "She was full of business, loved to pull little pranks but she was never cruel. She loved birds--and the river. She used to walk me to the University along the river some days--and dancing. She loved to dance. Her braids would twirl just like her skirts…"

  "But she doesn't do that now?" prompted Alleine.

  "She is dead." Adewole had not truly cried for his sister in months; he could not afford it. Now, in the near-dark with this trapped little girl-spirit, the tears poured down his dirt-streaked face, and a sob broke straight from his heart into the silent chamber. "She is dead."

  Chapter Twelve

  Adewole cried helplessly for some time, until Alleine soothed, "Oh, Ollie, you must've loved her a lot. I wish I was dead and she was here."

  "She is gone," said Adewole, wiping his eyes and nose on his last clean handkerchief. "Wishing changes nothing, child."

  "Don't I know it. I'm still sorry for you, though."

  "Thank you, my dear." He sniffled and cleared his throat until he brought himself back under control.

  Alleine broke the silence. "Ollie, can I ask you something? You said you didn't know I was in here. What was you looking for?"

  "Oh," he said, recollecting himself, "I have this book, a very old book, that I believe your Vatterbroch wrote. It diagrams what he did--rather, the process of making a Machine God. In the back, another man wrote about what happened to the city, and described where they put the God
's 'heart.' I came to see if I could find it."

  "He wrote nothing about me in the book?"

  Vatterbroch had used the clinical term subject rather than the more truthful abandoned girl no one would miss. "No, nothing about you."

  "He says how he did it in the book?"

  "Yes."

  "That's a bad book, then, you should burn it, Ollie," she said urgently, "but first, please--please see if there's something in it which will make the pain stop, or even let me out. I think if you let me out I'll die, but it's bad in here. It burns and itches even though I don't have anything to burn or itch, so if there isn't anything else, see if you can let me out," she begged, her voice increasingly frantic. "I'm scared someone will find me and put me back in the God. People came and took it apart, but the pieces don't rust or anything. Someone might put it back together again if they found that book, and then they could put me back in it, and that would be awful."

  "No," he reassured her, his heart wrung. "I will not leave you here."

  "If you find a way to let me out but I die, I promise I'll find your sister in the Star City and tell her you love her. I'll find Mam and we can take care of her till you come, too, except I hope that ain't for a long time."

  Adewole fought the ball of grief in his throat. At the mention of the Star City, though, he put his elbows on his knees again and clasped his hands, once again intent. "If I find a way, I promise I will let you out." Not until she's told us everything she can of the past, whispered the rebellious scholar in the back of his mind. He dismissed it angrily. "Tell me now about the Star City. Wait, I will get my notebook and pencil."

  "You don't know about the Star City? Where do the dead people in Jero go?"

  "The same place all dead go, though we call it by a different name. We say our dead go to the Heavenly River--that is our Star City. Mama Chano takes the good people to Her beautiful palace on the banks to feast, but the Crocodile God snaps up the bad people and drags them to the bottom of the River." If the Great Crocodile existed, Adewole hoped even now Vatterbroch writhed in His scaly jaws, as He ripped out the evil man's bones one by one, over and over, forever.

  "A crocodile? What's that? Is it a real thing?"

  "Crocodiles are real. I have seen many, though not the Great Crocodile--with luck and good works, I never shall meet the Great One, or so I hope. A crocodile is an enormous lizard, bigger than a man, which lives in the rivers of warm places like Jero. They have many sharp teeth and can eat a horse in three bites, but only one of them is a god."

  "My mam's in the Star City. I hope I go there, too, but I don't know if I can. I ain't been good. Maybe the Crocodile God will get me," she whispered.

  "You are as good as gold," said Adewole. It was time to distract them both from their pain. "Tell me about the Star City, now." He opened his notebook, filled in the date, and began to write, squinting in the bare glow of the pink lightcrystals and the brighter red of the Machine God's heart.

  The sun had sunk below the island's rim when Adewole left the Ossuary. The owl Ofira to all appearances had never left her perch; she opened her great round eyes, shook out her feathers and said, "You found something, eh, learnèd 'un? Took your time. I near left to find the soldier or t'other learnèd 'un."

  "I found someone. Something." He shifted his grip on his heavy satchel's handle. "Listen, now, Ofira, you must not tell anyone we have come here."

  "Your doings're your own. I tell none."

  "You must promise me, tell neither feathered or unfeathered."

  "I promise," she said in irritation. "Can you find your way home, though it be comin' on dark?"

  "I believe so. Any notions I need to know about?"

  "I get notions, you'll know. Now, I'm hungry, and I hear red voles in the brush. Can you not? I can near taste 'em." Ofira drifted off her perch, swooped in a low, looping farewell, and made her leisurely way off to find dinner.

  His back to the sun's last remnant in the sky, Adewole started the long walk home. His stomach grumbled at him. He remembered the sandwiches he'd stuffed in his pockets hours ago; he put the satchel down, fished one out, and unwrapped it. "We are alone now, child," he murmured.

  A muffled voice from inside the satchel said, "Was that your owl friend? I wish I could see her."

  "Some day. You are being a very good girl, so quiet and calm. You must be quiet when I say so, and stay quiet until I say so. Can you do this?"

  "It hurts more when we don't talk, but I'll be quiet, Ollie. Thank you for not leaving me alone," said Alleine.

  "You are welcome." They spent the walk in conversation, though his voice grew hoarse; they'd talked a great deal in the Ossuary. The closer they came to the City the more often he had to shush her, until he said, "More people will be near from now on. You must stay silent."

  All the way back he'd been pondering what to do. Take her home? Take her to the Library? She would be alone at night, but she would be alone at night if he were to keep her in his room; he had to sleep some time. He and Mr. Buckan were the only ones who had keys to his office, and as far as he knew Buckan stayed out. The books and translations were of little use to the librarian; the first were in Cherholtz's strange version of Old Rhendalian and the second were in the modern tongue, and Buckan understood neither.

  Now Adewole had found Alleine, the translations bothered him even more. Deviatka pestered him for more information on the diagrams, and Adewole rued the day he'd shared them. He couldn't show anyone anything more, especially Karl. If his friend understood the notebook's schematics and potential, and then learned he'd discovered the Machine God's heart…

  Karl was his best friend, a good man, but he was also an ambitious man. Power like the Machine God's might be irresistible, might corrupt even a man without ambition. Adewole's sole ambition was academic--to keep Alleine's trove of historical detail to himself. He wanted enough wealth to maintain his coffee and music habits, perhaps a little more--a better living situation, money for the water taxis. He might gain it through publishing his research, and perhaps he would make a lecture tour. He would enjoy lecturing to adoring crowds in Jero. In his less proud moments, he imagined his jealous former colleagues in the audience. As for anything else, he was no crusader. Curing the world's ills was beyond his wisdom, and he had enough wisdom to know it.

  Eventually Adewole decided Alleine would be safest hidden for now in the Library rare book room. It locked, and she would be quite comfortable. He spent his days there anyway and some of his nights, though Wirtz had taken to winkling him out of the Library past eleven at night. When they reached the quadrangle farms, Adewole sprang up the Library stairs, strode into the rare book room and left Alleine hidden among the stacks. "Do not speak, child, and I will see you in the morning. I will come as early as I may. Yes, there is ichor here, I am taking it away right now," he said, pocketing the little reading lamp on his desk. When he got home, he would have Wirtz commandeer a standard lantern. It might cause remark, but he could chalk it up to native superstition. Risentoner superstitions had some basis in fact, and he didn't enjoy belittling them, but in this case he would make an exception.

  Adewole said nothing about Alleine to Deviatka on his return; he tossed off his brandy and water and declined music, pleading a headache. A concerned Corporal Wirtz asked if he should send for Doctor Ansel, but Adewole begged off. "I am not ill. I miss my after-dinner coffee, and my breakfast coffee, and my afternoon coffee. It has been months and months. Might you ask Ambassador Weil's people if they would check on my missing trunk? It has never found its way to me from Jero, and it contained all my coffee."

  "You should just ask for new--you've earned a little treat for services rendered. Someone absconded with your trunk long ago," said Deviatka.

  "Undoubtedly," agreed Adewole, "but 'hope never dies in the faithful heart.'"

  The next day, Adewole left bright and early, up before even the early-rising Deviatka. Poor Wirtz yawned pink from sleep as he packed lunch "with extra for breakfast and possibl
y tea, sir, since you leave so early and come back so late some nights."

  On arriving at the rare book room, Adewole locked the door behind him, lit his new lantern, and pulled Alleine from her hiding place. She chattered like a relieved little magpie. "I'm so glad you came back, Ollie, I forgot how awful it is when you want to sleep and can't. I mean, I don't get tired, but it's so boring, and I hurt more. What are we gonna do today? Talk some more?"

  "I am going to work on my translations, and ask you questions about them if I think you might be able to help me understand. You might not be able to answer them, but shall we try?"

  "I'd like to help you, that'd be nice."

  "All right, then." Adewole made a show of thumbing through his papers. She wouldn't want to talk about the notebook. He would work up to it, all the while feeling like a traitor. He picked up what might be a novel. Translating it made for a good palate cleanser when work on Vatterbroch's notebook became too difficult to stomach. "This book describes the marketplace in part, and I know you used to spend a good deal of time there. Can you tell me what the marketplace was like?"

  "That's where Maria Kyper's stall is. You remember me tellin' you about her?"

  "What did she sell?"

  "Sweets, at least that's what I always liked about her place. Sweets in little paper packets. I like honey drops best. That's mostly what I got for running errands. She calls sweets 'in-promp-toos'--she says that means people buy 'em cuz they're there. Mostly she sells notions. You know, stuff for makin' dresses and hats and such--thread, needles, buttons, ribbons. I ast for a ribbon once, a red one, instead of sweets or coins. I want one to tie my hair back real bad, and then ribbons're so pretty, ain't they? I might not look so homely if I had a ribbon in my hair, or maybe I'd just watch it flutter. Anyway, Maria Kyper usually paid me no mind, but I musta ast one too many times. She boxed my ears and said never ask again."