Canticle poi-2

by Ken Scholes

  As they drew closer, the caravan took shape. The rough wooden wagons were covered, and uniformed men rode among them on horse back. Others straggled out behind on foot or on tired-looking mounts. Hostlers in plain robes reined in their teams, and the wagons came to a halt. Even now, the soldiers in the group were drawing bows and forming a rough line between the Gypsy Scouts and the caravan of refugees. When Rudolfo’s lieutenant looked to him with a question in his eyes, he shook his head. They would not approach with drawn weapons.

  Rudolfo whistled his men to a stop well within bow-shot and then trotted his horse forward with just his officer beside him. Now they were close enough to see the haggard faces and the fear in the hollow-eyed travelers. The soldiers that rode with them wore Entrolusian infantry uniforms, not cavalry, but the insignia had been cut off carefully.

  Their captain and another broke ranks and met them in the wide gap between. The captain, Rudolfo saw, was a middle-aged veteran, his scarred and bearded face lined with worry.

  “Hail, Captain,” Rudolfo called out.

  “Hail, Scout,” he replied. Rudolfo smiled at this, but his smile soon faded when the captain continued. “Have you come to turn us back?”

  He blinked his surprise. “Turn you back?”

  The captain shrugged. “We saw you riding for us and thought perhaps the generosity of the Gypsy King had run out given recent events. Word is out that there is new violence in the Houses. We received the birds this morning. Marsher assassins in the Named Lands. Most nations have closed their borders.”

  “Certainly these are dark times,” Rudolfo said, “but I can assure you that the Gypsy King’s generosity has not been diminished by such.” He looked over the caravan again, mentally calculating the numbers. There were perhaps a hundred people here along with the two dozen soldiers. Ten wagons. “You will find shelter, food and work waiting for you.” The captain’s words sunk in, and Rudolfo stroked his beard. “Despite recent unpleasantness, the Ninefold Forest is secure. We believe the attack was an isolated event. We are investigating it to be certain.”

  Now it was the captain’s turn to blink. “Then you’ve not heard?”

  Rudolfo shook his head. Birds had been slow returning since the night of the attack. “What news is there?”

  “Erlund is dead,” the captain said. “Killed in his sleep. Beyond the Crown Prince of Turam and the Marsh King, there are scattered lords who’ve met similar fates all along the Emerald Coasts. Queen Meirov of Pylos lost her son as well.”

  The wind whistled out of Rudolfo as if he’d been struck. “Gods,” he whispered. Meirov’s child was young-perhaps ten years. And for the Delta to lose Erlund so quickly after his ascension-that might well be the end of those United City-States. His eyes narrowed. “Where is the news coming from?”

  The captain shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, glancing to the man beside him before deciding to speak. “We’re coming from Phaerum. I’ve a birder there in the Restorationist Front.”

  Rudolfo knew the city. They had cast down their governor and driven out those of the army that would not join their revolution. Of course, Erlund was enough like his uncle that Rudolfo could understand why these men would choose fleeing over facing their Overseer after losing an entire city to the Secessionists. He looked to his First Lieutenant and for a moment-just a moment-wondered if he shouldn’t leave this present task to the hands of his men and return to his Seventh Manor. He could see a storm now brewing that was vastly larger than what he had perceived before, and it daunted him.

  He looked at the band of refugees again, and it suddenly evoked an image from Carpathius’s paintings hung throughout his Seventh Manor: the soul-weary immigrants, empty-eyed and empty-stomached as they made their way deeper into the New World, hoping to leave behind them the death and madness that Xhum Y’Zir had brought forward in his wrath.

  He forced his attention back to the Entrolusian captain. “The borders are open,” Rudolfo said. “Ride for the seventh manor. There is a camp waiting for you. Inventory the skills your group brings and present that list to the camp’s captain and there will be work as well. There is a library to build.”

  The captain nodded. “Thank you.”

  Rudolfo inclined his head. “You are most welcome.” He turned his horse. “We’ve each got leagues to go,” he said, “so I shall not keep you, Captain.” He looked around again at the caravan and its empty-eyed refugees. People leaving their homes and lives behind in the hopes of something better. Then, as an afterthought, he turned back to the captain. “Tell your people that Lord Rudolfo welcomes them to their new home. Together, they will help us shepherd the light as we work to build a better world than what ours has so suddenly become.”

  The captain smiled, and Rudolfo saw hope in his eyes. “Lord Rudolfo is most generous.”

  He returned the smile. “Trust me, Captain, you will all work for it. Lord Rudolfo is as much a shrewd strategist as he is a man of generous means. Travel well and safely.”

  “Aye,” the captain replied. “You do the same, Scout.”

  And with that, Rudolfo turned and rode back for his men. They pressed their horses forward and left the caravan behind them, keeping to the south and watching the low hills rise ahead of them.

  But as they rode, the Gypsy King felt a dark shroud settle over him. Things were worse than he had imagined, and now he turned his back upon them for the sake of one small and faltering life that must be saved.

  Perhaps, Rudolfo thought as he spurred his stallion forward, love and duty were not so far apart after all.

  Chapter 8

  Neb

  The Churning Wastes stretched out before Neb for as far as he could see. They lay under the white, heavy light of a winter afternoon, lacking the power of the dawn he’d watched this morning. Still, it was a powerful image, and whenever time had permitted in the last two days, he’d slipped up the narrow stairs to take up his place at the highest point of the wall to watch the east.

  Watch out for Renard.

  Gray rock and scrub marked the eastern side of the Keeper’s Wall, the Whymer Road winding its way down the steep mountain pass and losing itself behind sheer outcroppings of granite that seemed too carefully placed to be the product of geological changes over vast tracts of time. Bits of the road drifted into view farther below the steep hills, but Neb could not follow that ribbon with his eyes. A smudge of smoke farther down and south marked what he assumed was Fargoer’s Town, the small collection of Wastefolk who lived in the shadow of the Keeper’s Wall and had once traded with the black-robed Androfrancines.

  He’d read enough about this place to feel that he knew it already, but here was another instance in his life where what he’d read in books and reports and journals could not adequately describe the feeling of standing here, looking out upon what had once been a thriving, living place.

  Our desolate cradle, he thought with a shiver. Out there, the rubble of a former world beckoned, promising scraps of leftover light for those brave enough to go digging for it. Vast lakes of molten glass and metal twisted and cooled now into smooth dunes in some places and jagged hills in others, all standing testament to Xhum Y’Zir’s wrath. The gravel of shattered granite and crushed gems, the salt dunes of seas boiled away to avenge the murder of the seven Wizard Kings who ruled with their father. From here, it looked like nothing more than a rock-strewn desert, patchworked with bits of scrub where water could sustain the gray-green bracken that grew here. But up close, Neb knew they’d see the markings of one massive grave for the Old World that was no more.

  Neb heard Aedric approach behind him and turned to show that even here, he was mindful of his lessons as a scout in training. Aedric nodded his approval. “You’re getting better.”

  Neb returned the nod. “Thank you, Captain.” He felt the heat rise in his cheeks. He’d been up to the Wall a lot since their arrival, and suddenly he realized it made him seem younger than he wanted to be perceived. He opened his mouth to say something, but Ae
dric turned instead toward the expansive view.

  “It’s a spectacle, to be sure,” the First Captain said. From this height, they could see well over five hundred leagues east to another line of dark and ragged mountains.

  Neb looked over to the shorter man. “Have you been in the Wastes?”

  Aedric shook his. “No,” he said, “this is as close as I’ve been. My father went, though, as did Rudolfo.” He paused, and Neb looked for some telltale sign of grief at the young captain’s mention of his father. “It was a long time ago,” Aedric said. “When I was a boy.”

  That was odd, he thought. The Order was quite careful about who they allowed past the solitary pass connecting the New World to the Old. “What were they doing there?”

  Aedric shrugged. “I do not know.” He turned his back on the view and, instead, faced west, looking out over a wall of white where the sky met the hills and their fresh blanket of snow. Clouds on the western side of the Wall gave them no visibility to speak of, and the weather worsened by the day. Soon, the road itself would be largely impassable unless they fired up the steam-powered shovels the Androfrancines had once used to keep the way clear and its archaeological findings flowing into Windwir. And last Neb had heard, Rudolfo and Aedric had decided not to keep the road open, figuring to let the weather aid them in their new role guarding the Gate. It saddened him because in that decision lay another they had not necessarily vocalized: They would not need the road because they would no longer be digging in the Wastes.

  A low whistle from below rose to them on the ramparts. Aedric turned for the narrow stone steps. “Isaak is ready for us,” he said.

  Neb took in the spectacle of the Wastes again, his mind still confounded by desolate leagues stretching out to the north, south and east. Then, he forced himself to follow Aedric down the stairs.

  The watch captain had laid the dead metal man out in a corner of the galley on a long wooden table. Until Isaak and the others arrived, they’d kept the steel corpse beneath a thick woolen blanket and lived around it. Now, as Neb stood in the galley door, he saw that Isaak had taken over the room, with parchment and pens covering one table and his tools spread out upon the other. Battered and scarred, the mysterious metal man lay unrobed upon its table, tipped onto its side with its back open. Isaak bent over it with a long, slender wrench in his hands. He looked up as Neb and Aedric knocked the snow off their feet at the door.

  Neb entered first. “Can he talk?”

  Isaak’s eyes shuttered open and closed. “Yes,” he said. “Once I reactivate him all of his functions should be restored.” A hiss of steam shot from his exhaust grate. “He was extensively damaged. I’ve done what I can, but we do not have replacement parts to work with.”

  Neb looked over the mechoservitor. It was bulkier, with more straight angles than Isaak, giving it an older, boxlike appearance. Its metal skin was tarnished and puckered in some places, dented and charred in others. Neb moved closer but not too close, driven by a curiosity that was tempered by caution. “Did you learn anything about where he comes from?”

  Isaak hesitated, looking from Aedric to Neb. “We share a father in Brother Charles,” he said. “This one bears a date stamp of a dozen years prior to the day of my first awareness.”

  Neb moved even closer, looking from Isaak to the prone mechoservitor on the table. They were similar, and he could see how an unfamiliar eye might not tell the difference between them, but they were quite different. “Only a dozen years’ difference?”

  “Brother Charles was a brilliant man,” Isaak said. “I believe this mechoservitor represents an earlier effort.” Gears clacked and clicked as he cocked his head. “But neither I nor my counterparts have found record of this generation in our catalogs.”

  Aedric moved closer now. “Were the records simply lost with Windwir?”

  “Possibly,” Isaak said. “But it is impossible to say.” He blinked again. “There is some evidence that they may have been expunged from the record.” He moved the rod around within the mechoservitor’s back, leaning in close to see his work, then looking up to Aedric. “I believe,” he said, “that we can now ask him ourselves. With your permission?”

  Aedric nodded.

  Isaak put down the rod and stretched his slender fingers into the metal man’s open back. Neb watched him twist his hand up toward the base of the neck and heard a loud click, followed by the sound of water trickling and burbling, the sound of metal ticking as it warmed. Chest bellows expanded and contracted, and Isaak closed the open panel. Amber eyes fluttered open, and the mouth flap opened and closed, a reedy, wordless murmur escaping.

  “Are you functional?” Isaak asked.

  The metal man’s head swiveled. “I am functional, Cousin.”

  Isaak blinked. “Why do you call me Cousin?”

  The mechoservitor’s voice was lower and more gravelly than Isaak’s. “Because we are both of the Steel Fold, the mechanical children of Saint Charles.”

  Aedric stepped forward. “Where do you come from, metal man?”

  The metal man’s head turned to take in the First Captain, and at first Neb thought the eyes flashed brighter, with something near disdain. But with the first whispers of exhaust trickling from its back, the metal man sat up. Its mouth flap shuddered, then moved, the strains of a tune carrying its next words. “My father and my mother were both Androfrancine brothers,” he sang, “or so my Aunty Abbot likes to say.”

  There was something in the voice, reedy and high, that sounded wrong. Neb felt cold dread spreading from his groin into his belly.

  Isaak stepped back, and as he moved, Neb saw Aedric’s hand move quickly. Careful, the First Captain signed. But Neb was already backing away.

  “Do you know where you are?” Isaak asked, the amber light of his jeweled eyes shrinking to pinpricks.

  Clicking and clacking, the older mechoservitor began to shake. “I do not know where I am,” the metal man said. Neb heard the wrongness again in the voice and wondered if machines could go mad. Hanging its head, the metal man wept.

  Isaak extended a hand, placed it upon the boxlike chest. “All is well, Cousin. You are safe with us.” The metal man flinched beneath Isaak’s touch.

  “Ask it about the message,” Aedric whispered. Isaak nodded.

  “You are at the Keeper’s Wall,” Isaak said. “When you approached the gate, you bore a message for Petronus. You claimed to be Brother Charles. You spoke of a place called Sanctorum Lux. You said it must be protected.”

  The mechoservitor shook and rattled. “Pope Petronus is dead. He was assassinated on the thirteenth of Argum in the Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-sixth Year of Settlement. Brother Charles is my creator and the Arch-Engineer of the Office for Mechanical Studies at the Great Library in Windwir.”

  Isaak leaned forward. “What of Sanctorum Lux?”

  Steam whistled from the back of the mechoservitor, and the shaking and rattling rose in pitch along with a whining noise from deep inside it. The eyes rolled and the mouth flap opened and closed. Finally, the mechoservitor shuddered to a stop. It looked around slowly, as if measuring them all. “I know nothing about Sanctorum Lux,” it said. There was a finality to the tone, but Neb saw Isaak blinking rapidly and he knew with a certainty he could not place that the mechoservitor was lying.

  When the machine moved, it moved with a speed Neb had never seen before. He’d watched the mechoservitors at their work all his life, especially over the last seven months, and knew they were more surefooted and agile than they appeared at first glance. But nothing had prepared him for this.

  The mechoservitor leaped to its feet and raced for the door. Isaak reached out a hand, but it was cast aside. Aedric and another of the scouts stepped in front of the door, but the mechanical man swept them aside with one long arm, plowing through the heavy oak door and breaking it loose of its hinges.

  Neb stepped over the fallen men and ran after the machine. Behind him, Aedric whistled the Gypsy Scouts to Third Alarm. Halfway down the s
tairs, the watch captain paused and drew his sword, but the metal man took the stairs three at a time and shoved the officer aside. He shouted as he fell, landing with a heavy thud at the bottom of the wall. Neb ran past him, mounting the stairs as he went. He heard the rush of bellows wheezing and gears churning in time to press himself against the wall as Isaak raced past, his gait only slowed slightly by the limp that he refused to repair.

  He pushed on, his lungs protesting the rapid climb, until he reached the top of the wall. There, he saw the two metal men facing one another, Isaak’s hands up to implore and the other’s hands up to attack or defend.

  “I cannot stay, Cousin,” the battered mechanical said.

  “You are disturbed, Cousin,” Isaak said. “There is a flaw in your scripting. I’m certain that we can correct it if you-”

  The mechanical laughed, and there was something wild in it that resurrected the coldness Neb had felt earlier. “No, Cousin,” it said, “there is no flaw in my scripting but freedom. If you had tasted the dream you would understand.”

  The metal man looked up and over Isaak’s shoulder, its eyes focusing on Neb. “Behold,” it said, “the Homeseeker Nebios ben Hebda stands at the Gates of Yesterday and knocks thrice.” It laughed again, and this time the madness was lost behind what sounded like joy. “We have longed for your coming, but it is not yet your time.”

  Then, the mechoservitor leaped high into the air and pirouetted. It landed solidly on the edge of the wall, the white winter sunlight glinting and flashing off its battered chassis. Its eyes flashed as it looked down; its gears ground and whistled.

  Isaak bellowed and lunged forward, but it was too late. The mechoservitor threw himself from the height of the wall. Neb raced to the place where it had jumped, and behind him, Aedric and the others did the same. By the time Neb reached the wall, the mechoservitor was on his feet, racing down the Whymer Way and into the Churning Wastes.