The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  “Sun go there,” Drauthek pointed to a place on the southern horizon that the sun would reach in about an hour. “Rel run fast, we reach cave. Brass God come,” he shrugged again. “Who know? Maybe today, maybe never.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Rel.

  “Drauthek tells truth.”

  The path went up in a gratuitously difficult manner. In several places it narrowed and they had to edge around protruding masses in the rock so far that Drauthek’s toes pointed over thin air. In others the cliff curved over the path and dropped so low that Drauthek had to bend double to proceed, and Rel had to duck. The modalman faced death coolly. Rel did his best to copy him. He had been sent far from home, battled monsters out of nightmares and been lost in the desert, but the height was too much. He forced himself to ignore the flipping in his gut, keep his eyes ahead, and try not to think about how high they were climbing.

  After a time, his fear became a sort of bland background to effort. Scrambling over the dangerous path took all his concentration. He was not expecting Drauthek to stop when he did, on a ledge broader than most. The cliff roofed over the path fully there, so that the ledge was not far from being a cave itself. Otherwise, it was unremarkable.

  “Cave here,” said Drauthek. He pointed far to the back of the ledge. A narrow crack in the rock opened into the mountain, almost too narrow for a modalman to squeeze through, and thin enough to be taken for a shadow. Rel approached. A steady, cold wind blew from inside. When his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw that crude figures with four arms were painted in faded pigment all around it, many of them applied atop older, barely visible images. A stack of brushwood tied in bundles was set against the wall a little further along next to a patch on the floor greasy with old fires. A water urn with a cracked lid was situated next to that.

  Drauthek went and sat down by the firewood. He pulled a handful of dried meat from a pouch at his waist and fed a strip into his mouth.

  “That’s it? I just go in?” said Rel.

  “Why be waiting, small man?” said Drauthek.

  “No time like the present.” The crack was the darkest thing Rel had ever seen.

  “Huh?”

  “Something we say in the west,” said Rel. He took a step toward the gap, then stopped.

  “What do I do?”

  “Walk, until you find god,” said Drauthek. He unhooked a wooden ladle from his belt, took the top from the urn, and lifted water to his mouth.

  “He won’t object that I am not a modalman?”

  Drauthek washed his meat down and smacked his lips. “He is not modalman. He does not care. Any can speak with him, if he worthy.” He pushed another piece of meat into his mouth, folding it carefully several times, and set to work on it. He looked out at the void of air before him, as if he were an old man on a bench in the street, spending his last days watching the world go by.

  Rel shook his head. “Fine. I will see you soon.”

  “Maybe not,” said Drauthek.

  “Bloody literal bastards,” muttered Rel to himself, and went into the dark.

  FROM INSIDE THE cave daylight appeared, as glaring as the crack had been black. The sun penetrated only as far as a niche surrounded by geometric designs a few yards inside. Darkness beckoned. Inside the niche, Rel found a bundle of torches made of tightly bound twigs soaked in pitch. He took out his flint, iron and fire cotton, and had one of the torches burning in a few moments. He roped three more together and slung them across his back. Though the torches were heavy, being sized for modalmen, the thought of being lost in the dark of the mountain encouraged him to make the effort. Carrying the lit torch in his left hand, he went forward with his carbine in his right. The gun was too awkward to shoot one-handed effectively. At least the close environs of the cave precluded having to aim.

  A jagged tunnel led upward. He scrambled up a couple of high, natural steps to where a second passage branched off from the first. He held his torch aloft, unsure of which route to take. The flame roared in the cold wind coming from the new tunnel. He turned into it, and the wind blew stronger, chilling his face. Reasoning that the wind had to come from somewhere, he took the second tunnel.

  A few feet further on the last of the day vanished, leaving Rel reliant on the unsteady flames of the torch.

  Time lost meaning in the dark. He supposed he had been climbing for nearly an hour when the first torch guttered out. He swore, and threw it aside. Red embers on the torch stub went out quickly, leaving him in total blackness. The second torch took longer to light than the first. He wished for a glimmer lamp, or a simple oil lamp, something that would give a steady light. Sparks spraying from his iron into his fire cotton lit up the cave with disorienting flashes. He wondered if he would have enough torches to find his way out again.

  In the dark, his imagination ran wild. What exactly was this meeting with a god going to be like? Was he a brass-armoured primitive, savage as his worshippers? Was he a corporeal being like Eliturion? Rel gave out a snort of black laughter. He would have much preferred to be listening to that old bore in the Nelly Bold than stuck in the bowels of the mountain.

  Finally, his wad of fire cotton caught. It nearly blew out in the tunnel wind. Swearing again, he sheltered it with his hand and coaxed the tiny flame into a small blaze, and lit the torch from it. Once the torch was alight, he patted out the cotton and stuffed it back into his tinder kit. He was acutely aware that his resources were limited. He supposed he could find his way back in the dark if he had to, so long as the path didn’t diverge more than once, but he would prefer not to have to face the challenge.

  If there’s a damn labyrinth in here, I’m a dead man, he thought.

  He pressed on. The path went always upward, getting steeper and rougher. Sharp rocks poked through clay that became increasingly moist, and he slipped several times. The wind began to moan, quietly to begin with, becoming shrill and insistent as the rocks got sharper and the tunnel narrower.

  As the second torch was burning low, Rel came to a part of the tunnel that levelled out and snaked around a number of tight switchbacks. He had to stoop to get by. A modalman would have had to wriggle through. The ground was smoothed over by the passage of many bellies.

  “I must be going the right way,” he said to himself, running his hand over the compacted clay. The wind moaned louder in response.

  The further he went into this new section, the harder the wind blew. His torch went out as the tunnel was broadening again. He continued a few paces, until the wind slackened and sang from distant surfaces. There was a sense of wide space in front of him. He stopped dead, wary of unseen drops.

  He knelt to pat at the ground. Finding damp clay under his hands and not a chasm, he breathed a sigh of relief and took out his third torch. He had one left after that.

  Sparks flashed not on cave walls but upon masonry, and rows of giant, fractured pillars. He slowed his efforts, striking sparks to take in his surroundings. Nearby, the monumental, blank-eyed head of a Morfaan statue looked at him from the clay.

  “The temple,” he said.

  The torch stubbornly refused to light. There was the sound of movement in the dark. He paused, ears straining. The sound came again, moving closer, and he redoubled his efforts. A soft, eerie whining echoed round the room, and the hiss of metal moving on metal. Points of glimmer light shone in the dark. The sparks of his flint reflected from a cluster of glass eyes mounted in a triangular metal face

  The light grew, illuminating the cave in a low blue glow. Rel had only the most fleeting impression of his surroundings, not much more detailed than that provided by the sparks. It could have contained every wonder of the past, but his attention was held entirely by the machine heading toward him. He abandoned his torch, got up, and aimed his gun.

  The machine appeared bent double at first, before Rel saw that it was not humanoid, but insectile, with a domed carapace and many limbs. Pistons hissed, powering a score of multiply jointed arms. A dozen legs gave the machine a smoo
th, unnerving gait. Superficially it resembled a giant beetle. It was far in advance of anything a human engineer could build.

  He pulled back the hammer on his gun. “I am here to see the Brass God!” he proclaimed. “Are you he?” Growing up in a city with its own resident deity had bred a certain lack of reverence into Rel. He thought he should have been more respectful, but he had no idea how.

  The machine’s blade-tipped feet pressed into the clay. Humming workings propelled it toward Rel. It was thirty yards away, moving down an aisle between toppled columns.

  “Gods,” Rel said. “You might be the coal hauler for all I know.” He backed away. The beetle moved up and over a pile of rubble as smoothly as a millipede.

  “Stay back!” he said, as it came closer. He adjusted his aim, centring it on the head. “Stop! I don’t want to shoot!”

  If this was some sort of test, he was failing it miserably.

  “This is my last warning!”

  The beetle came closer. The broad head tilted to one side. In its jaws was a glass capsule full of liquid lit by internal glimmer light. Mechanical mouthparts scissored against each other unpleasantly.

  “Oh for the love of the lost gods,” Rel said, and fired.

  The blue-white discharge of the ironlock momentarily blinded him. The bullet drew a line of sparks off the creature’s armoured back. The beetle continued to move on him, no faster and no slower than before.

  “Shit!” he said. Rel snapped the gun open, and reloaded quickly, bringing the barrel up and firing in one movement. Rel was well practised, and his bullet shattered a glass eye. The light behind it went out, but the mechanical creature had plenty to spare and continued its advance without slowing.

  Rel backed away as he fired, getting off two more shots before he decided to run.

  “I can’t hurt you, can I? Stupid idea,” he said, diving for the tunnel. He slipped and fell, landing hard on the clay. He waited for the hot pain of metal entering his flesh.

  None came. He turned on his back.

  The mechanism was too large to fit inside the tunnel. It stood at the entrance regarding him with its dead, artificial eyes.

  When the creature made no further move against him, he got slowly to his feet, and held up his hands.

  “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here,” he said. “I need to see the god. I’m sorry if this isn’t the right way to go about it. I’m new to religion.”

  A hiss of air delivered a sharp sting to his arm.

  “Damn it,” he said, looking down at the long dart protruding from his bicep. His vision doubled.

  A long, banded metal whip shot from below the mechanism’s mouth, wrapped itself around Rel’s legs, and yanked him off his feet.

  He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  REL CAME TO crumpled against a wall, his mouth the flavour of an old sock and a headache to rival the worst hangover he had ever had. His surroundings had him forget both discomforts.

  He was in a hall of stone with the texture and colourful qualities of fine marble and the seamless nature of Morfaan glass. Ribbed vaulting supported a high ceiling integrated so organically with the greater structure that he had the vertiginous sense of being trapped inside a monster’s ribcage. The hall’s vertical cross-section and its floorplan were both oval, and so perfectly symmetrical it looked wrong. The rear wall was blank and the front a vast window, though they were otherwise identically shaped. The clear glass grew from the stone glass, if that was indeed what either substance was, and looked out over the mountain foothills, the valley, and the desert beyond. The view was so sharp and clear, lacking the fuzzing of distance, that he suspected it had been magically sharpened. Several large sculptures were arrayed along the centre of the room, abstract shapes that turned soundlessly a few inches off the floor. Light came not only from the window, which let in the strong sun, but emanated also from the material of the hall itself.

  Hands slipping on the smooth glass, he pulled himself up. A curious note sounded nearby, like that of a trumpet, followed by the clicking of metal feet. The mechanism from the cave emerged from behind one of the sculptures.

  In the light the machine was not as intimidating as it had been in the dark, but it was frightening nonetheless. It tilted its multifaceted brass face toward him, and let out the same noise, which though wordless had the intonation of a question.

  Rel’s hands went for his sword. The scabbard was empty. His gun too was nowhere in sight. He held up his hands and backed away toward the giant window.

  “I mean no harm!” he said.

  Multiple legs rippling in sequence, the device took a step forward.

  “And I’m sorry I shot you.”

  The creature blurted out a rasping noise. Rel backed off another step. The mechanism did the same, and stopped at arm’s length from him.

  Rel frowned. He took another step back. The beetle took another step forward. It made no move to come any closer than that. Haltingly, he reached out his hand and touched the thing’s brass casing. His fingers encountered warm metal that vibrated with the working of internal mechanisms.

  A voice spoke from the machine, though it had no lips or visible means of forming words. “You are awake,” it said in archaic Maceriyan.

  “Yes.” Rel peered at the device’s face. The broken eye was an ugly scar on its alien beauty. He had never seen anything like it. It was so finely made it was hard to see it as a machine, and not as a bizarre, metallic artwork.

  “I have come in search of the Brass God,” Rel said loudly and clearly, feeling foolish for it. “The god of the modalmen. Are you he?”

  “It is not the Brass God,” said the voice from the machine.

  Halting footsteps came from behind Rel. He looked about for the source and found an opening in the side of the hall that had not been there before. From this tunnel another machine came. This was humanoid. Its face was a skull fashioned in metal, and it had two smaller arms partway between its arms and hips mounted on ball and socket joints. Rel recognised it as the same kind of device he had seen in his vision at Losirna, although this one was damaged, and therefore lacked the smooth, effortless motion of those machines.

  “I take it you are the Brass God,” said Rel. “Your worship. My lord, um...” He flailed about for the right turn of phrase. He settled for a short, sauralier’s bow.

  The mechanism limped closer. The left leg had been patched with inferior metals, and the knee no longer flexed, so that the device had to swing out its leg to move forward, and for most of the step its heavy foot dragged across the floor. The lesser of the left arms was bent out of shape and immobile. A hole in the skull exposed busy cogs lit by soft glimmer light. The dragging foot scratched the marble, but it rippled and healed itself as soon as it was damaged. For a moment Rel was reminded of his father, and his crippling by apoplexy.

  The being’s mechanical eyes whirred at Rel.

  “I am the Brass God.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Brass God

  THE BRASS GOD looked down at Rel. His delicate mechanical irises whirred, metal petals behind the glowing glass.

  “This is my companion, Onder,” the Brass God said gesturing at the beetle machine. Onder waggled its head from side to side and made a pleasant sound. “You hurt him.”

  The Brass God’s face was a death’s head fashioned from brass and silver. It therefore had little in the way of expression. Small motors whined in its neck as it bent its head down. It was not as tall as a modalman, but at over seven feet tall, it was far bigger than Rel.

  “He meant you no harm.” The Brass God’s voice echoed, like a person speaking into a metal tube. “You came to seek me, he is the means of conveyance. There was no need to discharge your weapon at him.”

  “I am sorry,” said Rel. “I wasn’t willing to take the chance. I did not know it… he… Onder was friendly.”

  “He is not friendly,” said the Brass God. “He is not aggressive. He is not really even a he
. He is what I command him to be. At the moment, I desire him to be friendly. Are you going to give me reason to change my mind, and therefore his?”

  Onder presented a limb ending in a wicked pair of steel shears that rasped open and shut with unmistakeable meaning.

  “There’s no need to threaten me. I am not here to fight,” said Rel.

  The Brass God looked from mechanism to man. His joints made delicate, metallic noises as he moved.

  “You are either brave, or stupid. Humans are quite often both, but I shall give you the benefit of the doubt.” The Brass God’s body shifted to maintain its balance with a dozen small corrections, as a human’s does. Its behaviour uncannily mimicked life, unlike Onder, who only moved with a machine’s purpose. A pulsing light flickered in the god’s chest in place of a heart. Glowing blue tubes threaded their ways through hollow spaces visible in gaps in the outer casing. “I brought you here to talk. Time is growing short, and we have much to discuss.”

  “I have come to talk,” Rel said.

  “That pleases me. I have waited for one like you for a long time. Perhaps fate works in our favour, Rel Kressind, as the modalman Shkarauthir believes.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “I know a lot more than who you are. I cannot leave this citadel, but the devices of my kind allow me to gather information from across the world. I will explain, as best I can. Much of what I have to say will be beyond your understanding. Firstly, I know you, but you do not know me.”