He held out his working lesser hand. Rel looked at it stupidly.
“Do you no longer shake hands in Ruthnia?” said the god.
“Sorry, I’ve only met one god before. He is a little different.”
“I am not a god, nor is the personage you refer to. There is only one god, the One, the creator who made this world and the realm of stars in which it spins, and the void around it. He is more than I or Eliturion can ever be. We are... We are different to one another, but neither of us are gods.”
Rel took the hand in his own. The fingers were layered constructions of plate metal, and uncomfortable to hold.
“So, you probably wonder, if I am not a god, what am I? I will tell you. My name is Qurunad. I am, or was, of the Morfaan. I am deathless, but I have never been divine.”
“I thought there were only two gods left in the world. They are not machines.”
“I was not always a machine,” said Qurunad. He had a schoolmaster’s superior air. “Before my spirit was forced to inhabit this mechanism, I was one of the last of my people, a survivor of the long war that again engulfs this Earth.”
“The war. You are speaking of the iron men?”
Qurunad nodded. “The Draathis are our enemies of old. The modalmen were bred to fight them, and heed our ancient decrees still, though we are no longer masters of this place. The lights on the World of Form are their signal to gather, and so they come.”
“Shkarauthir said something about that. That’s a start.”
“As I said, there is much to discuss,” said Qurunad. He turned laboriously around and headed back the way he had come. Seeing no other option, Rel followed.
The Brass God led him out of the hall into a second. Onder trotted behind them like a dog. The wall sighed closed behind them, sealing itself so thoroughly no trace of an opening was left.
The next hall was similar to the first, only much bigger and dirtier. The first hall’s immaculate state seemed intended to impress. This second room appeared a little more honest in the way it matched the ruinous exterior of the Fallen Citadel. Scores of machines stood around its periphery in various states of disrepair. A half dozen things like Onder lined one wall, none of them complete. Bits of broken machine lay on the floor next to them. None of the machines in the room seemed to be in working order. The most complete of them sat on marble tables growing from the floor, displayed like museum pieces. All of them except Onder’s brothers were of unguessable purpose. The light in the wall was mostly out, being confined to sickly-looking blotches. An even bigger window than in the first room looked over the valley. The camp of the modalmen was a collection of black dots on the pale mud of the lake bed; they went to and fro between their tents, smaller than fleas.
“We are in the Citadel,” said Rel.
“That is what the soldiers call it.”
“You know, you speak Maceriyan excellently. This is happening to me a lot. I did not expect either modalmen or their god to have any knowledge of our speech.”
“I speak Maceriyan, because it is a debased version of my language.” Qurunad looked down at Rel. His mechanical face may have been limited in expression, but his hauteur was clear enough. “When we brought your people to this Earth, you came from hundreds of worlds and had a thousand tongues. We taught many of you our language so that you might speak with one another and with us. We imprinted the leader caste of the modalmen with this knowledge also, though we gave them their own language so they might converse among themselves.”
“You brought people here?” said Rel. He stopped and held up his hands. “Wait, wait. You brought us here?”
“You heard me correctly.” The limp of the damaged god was pronounced, but Qurunad’s voice was unaffected by pain, and was oddly flat for the lack of discomfort. “I can speak Karsarin if you prefer,” he said, in perfect Karsarin, “or any one of mankind’s crude languages. This Maceriyan is a bastardised child of Morfaan. I do not care for it, but it serves.” The Brass God set off again. He went through an aperture into a round corridor where lights flickered. “Your antiquarians are beginning to uncover the past, though some of your culture’s recent attempts to understand the world are so wrong they amuse me. Perhaps you might enlighten your scholars to the truth, should we all survive the next year, for I shall tell you much that is not known in a few moments. No more questions. Patience, please. I wish to sit. Walking tires this body. There is a pleasant place this way where we can talk.”
They entered a corridor whose outward face was also of clear glass. Rel saw they were in one of the walkways he had seen from the ground, near the top of the Citadel. The little town around the base of the tower was a long way below. It appeared even more ruinous than it had to his earlier observations. Tangles of rustless metal lay in the hollow spaces of derelict buildings. Shattered piles of glass twinkled under coats of sand.
The walkway split in two. One tube led off around a sharp bend. The Brass God took the other turn toward what appeared to be a dead end. The wall sparkled with glimmer light and parted as they approached, opening into an indoor park where trees and grass grew under a glass sky. Rel recognised less than half the plants. Murals of human soldiers in archaic armour and riding strange, mammalian beasts filled the wall. They were depicted in the throes of combat, battling a race of bizarre creatures who appeared like nothing more than ambulatory mushrooms whose stalks were split by fang-rimmed mouths.
The Brass God lowered itself awkwardly into a throne of greened bronze and pointed out a bench of marble much lower than his own seat. Rel swept off a covering of dead leaves, and sat.
Onder scuttled away to a corridor on the other side of the little park, leaving them alone.
“I have sent Onder for water. Your body will need it to clear the after effects of the drug I administered.”
Rel rubbed his head. “That is kind. My head does hurt.”
“It will pass quickly. The drug is designed to be short-lived. I apologise for the need. I cannot have the access to this place discovered.”
“You are afraid of Brauctha.”
The Brass God stared, letting Rel know he disapproved of his rudeness, before continuing. The pulsing clicks of his artificial body sounded like crickets under the trees. “I would offer you food and wine, but I no longer have need of mortal sustenance, and so there is none in the Citadel. Nothing grows in these lands anymore. This garden is all that is left of the variety they supported. A pitiful collection.”
Onder returned with a small machine clasped in a number of its limbs, a jug in another, water in a flawless glass in a third, and a small casket in a fourth. Rel accepted the water and drank it gratefully. It was bitterly cold, but delicious. “Thank you,” he said. His headache receded as quickly as the god had promised. Onder refilled the glass from the jug. Rel gulped it down, for the water intensified his thirst rather than satisfying it. When he had drained the second glass, his headache retreated to lurk at the rear of his skull.
“What you are drinking is snow melt from the high peaks filtered through the stone,” said Qurunad. “You will find no purer water anywhere in the Kingdoms. Certainly not in these fallen times.” The god pronounced everything the same way, slightly brusquely, as if delivering an important lesson to uncomprehending students. “Now, to business. I will not delay. Please listen carefully. What you are about to hear is very important. You will most likely not believe it, but you must if your people and mine are to have any chance at survival, and this world is not to be transformed into a burning wasteland to match the World of Form.”
Qurunad clasped his primary hands. His functional secondary arm waved as he spoke, gesturing emphatically to illustrate his points. Again Rel noted that he did not behave like a machine but like a living being. He shifted in his seat, and made all the other trivial movements a man might as he sat by the fire, telling a tale.
“The beginning,” said the Brass God. “Whatever your mythology or your science tells you is wrong. The One made these worlds, and
then he made his children. First were the twin worlds. Other spheres followed. After that, he made life, and from life, thinking beings. From five thinking beings, he made a race that could create. Our masters were the Children of The Five, a great and powerful race,” Qurunad said. “Are you familiar with these terms?”
“From a folktale, told to me by Shkarauthir the modalman. He said much the same”
Qurunad nodded approvingly. “That will suffice. Good. It will save us time”
“The One is the god of the Ishamalani,” said Rel. “I worked that out for myself.”
Once more the Brass God gave Rel his disapproving stare. “You are quite facetious for a human being meeting a god.”
“It’s a problem I have. It gets worse the more scared I am.”
“Contain yourself. These are matters of the utmost seriousness. The religion of the modalmen and that of your Ishmalani is similar,” said the Brass God. “They contradict each other, both are incorrect in many details and some fundamentals. But, broadly speaking, their creeds are true, and the god they worship is the same.
“As the One made his children, so his Children of the Five made their own. The ones we must concern ourselves with were of two strains, conceived for different purposes. We Morfaan were raised up by the Children of the Five from the beasts of this earth to be their pupils.” He paused. His artificial irises purred smaller in his lidless eyes. “The Children of the Five made many terrible mistakes in their stewardship of this world. Maybe our creation was one of them. The creation of the Draathis certainly was.
“While we Morfaan were made to be their companions and servants, the Draathis,” he went on, “were created by the Children of the Five as slaves. They are machines of a sort, though they are made with such artifice and imbued with such a measure of will they are closer to truly living beings than this device I inhabit. We Morfaan were made of flesh, and were granted more of Will and less of Form. The Draathis were born of iron, so are more of Form and less of Will. Iron is the epitome of Form. It is inimical to what you understand as magic, but the reaction between magic and iron, as your own engineers are discovering, can produce powerful results. The indomitable Draathis soul was one unintentional consequence. Have you witnessed them yet?”
“I had never heard of them until I met Shkarauthir, and then only after a long time with the modalmen.”
“To see the Draathis is to know fear. They are iron giants, big as the modalmen, with blood of molten metal and cunning minds. You will know soon enough, when you face them.”
Qurunad reached out his hand. Onder offered up the machine. It was a small, flat metal box, with what looked a little like the horns of a lyre projecting upward from the back. The front was featureless, except for a small, hemispherical depression. Qurunad placed the machine on the arm of his chair. He then took the casket from Onder and opened it to show Rel the contents. Inside were stacked trays, each holding a dozen spheres the size of children’s marbles. Each ball was of pure silver, and etched all over with delicate lines.
“Do you know what these are?”
Rel looked up at the god. “Morfaan silver.”
“These are the books of my people. For generations, your kind has looted the ruins of our cities for these spheres, seeing nothing in them but the value of the metal they are made of. You were blind to their true worth, for upon each is a library of information. How many millions of these precious books have been melted down in ignorance by your kind,” he said sorrowfully. “The knowledge of ages made into crude coin.”
“I’m fairly certain no one knew what they were. Your emissaries could have told us.”
“I agree,” said the Brass God. “The others would not allow it. I argued that we should provide the reading machines to you, and reveal the truth of the silver in order to speed your development. I was outvoted. One of many catastrophic errors made by our ruling council. They decreed that the people of the Kingdoms be left to find their own way, with minimal guidance from our kind. If we did not leave you to raise yourselves up, it was argued, you would become powerful too rapidly. Inevitably you would learn the truth of your existence here, hunt the last of us down, and take the world for yourselves.” Qurunad picked up one of the spheres. Rel could see no difference between it and the rest. Qurunad slotted the ball into the depression on the machine, where it clicked home.
“I will show you. Look between the projection prongs. Let the machine find harmony with your mind. No harm will come to you, do not be afraid. The more readily you accept this, the more I may show you.”
The ball started to spin, building up speed until it rotated in a blur, becoming a solid, unmarked silver. A greyness formed between the horns, thickening into a flat mist.
“I take it this will not be like reading?” said Rel.
“The analogy between this technology and a book is imperfect,” said Qurunad, taking Rel’s words at face value, not hearing the impudence in them. “It is the only one you might comprehend. Obey me, and look into the grey!”
The greyness formed a skin that undulated like a sheet in the wind. A dancing circle of lights spun in the centre. Without any prior indication, Rel’s perceptions shifted, and he felt that he was no longer within his own body, but separate from it by a marginal but crucial degree, so that his vision drifted rightward and his sense of touch moved out of synchronisation with his limbs. Nauseated, he attempted to look away, but his head would not turn.
“Keep your eyes on the grey!” commanded the Brass God. “Look within!”
The world turned on its side, and Rel found himself elsewhere.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Day of Betrayal
THEY WERE IN the air, many hundreds of feet above the ground, but the sky was as solid as stone under them. Rel was not flying, instead he stood in the sky without falling from it. He could see for hundreds of miles in all directions, to misty horizons greened by patches of forest and the broad savannah lands between. Far away, Rel saw the spires of a white city. Though the vista was far-reaching, the chief element of the scene displayed to him were two mighty hosts arrayed against each other. A battle about to begin, frozen in time at the outbreak of hostilities.
“This is what I have brought you to see,” said the Brass God. Qurunad’s metal body was gone. In its stead was the form of a living Morfaan. He was slightly taller than Rel and roughly human in overall appearance, with a hint of the reptile to his banded throat and flattened nose. Long robes covered him from his neck to his feet, concealing his lesser arms, although there were embroidered slits in the cloth to allow him to employ them should the need arise. His upper arms were heavily muscled, and bare from the elbow. Around his wrists were wide bracelets so finely fitted and the metal that comprised them so thin that they flexed with the play of his muscles. Pouches and strange devices of silver and crystal hung from a thick belt of dracon hide about his slender waist. His voice had lost its metallic echo, but remained haughty, and the look from Qurunad’s eyes of flesh was no warmer than those from his eyes of glass.
“Have you taken me through time?” asked Rel. “Is this the effect of Morfaan magic?”
“This is a true record of times long gone,” said Qurunad. “Preserved in the silver so that it might be seen again. This is a distillation of time, captured the same way a mindless phantom is sometimes trapped upon the fabric of the world, when the conditions are right. This device is far improved over the natural phenomenon.”
Qurunad inclined his head. They swooped down and across the landscape, as if they were in a painting, and flying at will through the scene.
The armies facing each other were not, as Rel might have expected, one of Draathis and one of Morfaan, but a mix of both species arranged in similar, checkerboard formations three regiments deep. In the first line were thousands of Draathis, and Rel got his first look at the beings who wished to ravage his world. They were blocky, dark figures with only two arms. Their heads were square, and though they appeared to be wearing armour
, it was quite clear when Rel flew close by them that this was merely detail sculpted onto their iron skin. Their flesh was roughly cast, and purpled with oxidisation. Frozen in time they appeared as statues. Their bodies looked to be incapable of movement for want of articulation. The fires in their eyes and mouths though were alive, lighting the ground before them orange, and rippling the air with arrested heat. They were caught in postures of aggression, fists clenched and raised, mouths open in silent howls. For all their belligerence, they had no weapons.
The second line was of Morfaan dressed in ornate armour of differing metallic shades—blues on one side, reds on the other. Unlike the iron giants, the reptilian creatures had all the semblance of living beings captured in a moment, which when ended would see them move again. Their regiments were varied in armament, some with polearms tipped with curved sword blades engraved all over with flowing script, others with swords and tall shields. A lesser number carried giant crossbows etched with blazing rune marks. These missile men were interspersed between the units carrying close quarter weaponry, so that they could support one another in battle. The warrior’s lesser arms were half-hidden by the designs of their armour, the vambraces and gauntlets covering them fashioned so that when the arms were folded in, as most were, they looked like part of the warriors’ breastplates.
The third lines consisted of more Morfaan. Among the hindmost regiments were massive cannons of strange design. Some of these were in the process of firing. Clouds of blue fire billowed from their mouths, out of which speared lightning bolts stopped upon the instant of striking.
On the wings of each army were hosts of dracon riders. Hundreds of flags flew from the standards in each group. They were glorious armies, beautiful and exotic, with such colours that they shimmered as rainbows across the land. Pretty and poison as oil on water.
The similarity between them was peculiar. The diversity of troop type and tactics seen in the Hundred’s armies was lacking. Both armies were armed and armoured the same way, with only minor variation, and there were similar numbers on each side. Their deployment differed only in the detail. The red army favoured wider frontages and shallower formations in its infantry, the blue had more cavalry. They looked more like a parade ground show or armies for a war game fought upon a table than real forces.
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