The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  Godelwind whimpered.

  “As you wish, captain,” said Toberan, and again left the wheelhouse.

  Heffi clicked his telescope shut. Persin’s ships really were remarkably quick for floatstone.

  The crew began firing the Prince Alfra’s few cannon, small calibre swivel guns attached to the rails. Guns that size would do nothing to Persin’s monsters. But the Prince Alfra had a greater weapon: speed. More speed than any other ship on the sea.

  “All about!” shouted Heffi. “Engage all glimmer engines. Immerse the cores! Prepare screw for engagement!”

  “All about!” repeated Drentz.

  “Counterspin the paddles!” Heffi ordered.

  “Counterspin paddles!” shouted Drentz.

  Tolpoleznaen was back at the wheel. He threw it round. As the rudder pushed the ship into a steep starboard turn, the paddlewheels spun in opposite directions, and the Prince Alfra slewed around, tipping to port with the violence of its motion. Grey water whipped white by the ship surged up the side in sheets of spray.

  The pop-pop-pop of cannon fired at range crackled behind them. Cannonballs shrieked after them, trailing blue glimmer. Spouts burst from the ocean where they struck. A single ball clipped the stern, making the hull boom. Heffi grinned. No glimmer cannon could penetrate the Prince Alfra’s iron hide.

  “Turn complete,” said Tolpoleznaen.

  “All ahead full!” shouted Heffi. “Engage screw!” His orders were repeated by his men.

  The floatstone ships were coming closer. Croutier’s men shouted for mercy as they were tossed from the side. One of Persin’s ships slowed to pick them up. The other continued at full speed, its funnels belching black coal smoke, paddlewheels chopping hungrily at the fractious sea.

  Another round clanged from the ship. Columns of water fountained around the Prince Alfra. The ship lunged forward as the screw and paddles bit into the ocean. Cold air streamed through the broken windows of the wheelhouse.

  Heffi grinned savagely. The two ships of Persin’s expedition fell behind them. The cannon fire became less threatening, diminished by distance to the volume of children’s popguns. Impact spouts were far to their stern. No other rounds hit home.

  “This is a very fine ship,” said Heffi, patting his damaged console. “A very fine ship indeed.”

  He rested his hand a moment on brass fittings cold in the breeze.

  “Make course for Sea Drays Bay,” said Heffi. “Tolpoleznaen, you have command. I must inspect the damage to our vessel, and pay my respects to those who died to save it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The Breath of the Mountain

  A MODALMAN FACED another, smaller warrior from a different clan. His nostrils flared, his clan marks pulsed out a threat. The second reacted, shoving at the first with his huge, upper arms. In seconds they were grappling on the ground, all four fists punching and gouging. The large pinned the smaller, landing multiple blows on his head. Then the smaller managed to block and lock the arm of the larger, and flipped him off his chest onto the ground, where the tussle commenced anew.

  Drauthek clapped loudly with his lower hands, cupping his upper hands around his mouth. “Yes! Yes! Good throw,” he said, almost knocking Rel flat as he clapped. The modalman laughed joyously and shouted some more, “hit him,” and “bring him down” being words Rel now understood in modish, having seen several impromptu wrestling bouts over the preceding days. The modalmen were feeling the pressure of the wind. Aggression flared, but they were also deliriously happy.

  Rel moved away from Drauthek. It would be highly ironic if he were incapacitated by an accident only hours before escape. Out of the shelter of his giant friend’s body, he wrapped his scarves about his face tightly against the gathering storm.

  As the Brass God predicted, lights played around the citadel’s towers. Hot wind blew directly down the face of the mountain. The vortices it generated as it hit the ground were visible to the naked eye as standing waves of dust. From there the wind raced out into desert. Funnelled by the valley sides, the wind picked up speed, stirring up dust devils on the dry lake bed. These tore through the camp, tossing the modalmen’s possessions hither and thither. Tents boomed and shook with the force of air hurrying from one place to another. An occasional whiplash crack accompanied the collapse of a shelter. The modalmen were invigorated, almost giddy, but their animals were less than happy. The garau huddled together, feet folded under them, bellies pressed close to the earth. Their eyes were shut and their eyelashes coated with sand. Like the garau, the hounds lay motionless with their rumps facing into the wind. The animals waited out the storm without eating or drinking. They were so still sand collected on them, making them appear like so many boulders.

  Laughter greeted each falling tent and spontaneous altercation. The modalmen sang wild songs, and gave their praise not to the sun in the morning, but instead to the wind. If it dropped, they were glum, only to become joyous again as it picked up and lashed them all anew.

  “It is a common wind in these parts, it comes from the high peaks, hot and vigorous,” Shkarauthir explained. He had become voluble again, buoyed up by the wind. “It brings painful heads and short tempers, but when it comes it blasts out all bad thoughts, and fills us with the energy of the One. It is his gift to us, if we are strong enough to use it.”

  This was the Breath of the Mountain. It made Rel twitchy. There was an energy contained in it that made his skin crawl, although there were other reasons for his nerves, and they had little to do with the wind itself. Every day as the wind picked up, he wondered if that day would be the day it reached its height, and if he should strike out. He awaited the trance the Brass God promised, but if anything the modalmen were becoming more energetic, not less, and he feared he might be squandering his chance to get out.

  Besides that, the wind was an enormous irritant. It was very hot, hotter than the desert itself. Its unvarying direction and mostly constant speed was maddening.

  “Like being stuck in a bread oven,” he muttered to himself. Blown sand got into his food and his face and his bed. His sole comfort was that Aramaz, ostensibly better adapted for life in those conditions, seemed as miserable as he did.

  It was while he was commiserating with his dracon that the change in the modalman began. Aramaz had scraped out a depression in the ground, like the nest of a desert fowl, and settled himself into it. Rel sat by the dracon’s head, picking grit out of his dried meat and fruit and letting the dracon lick the residue off his fingers. The dracon’s inner eyelids were permanently shut. His pupils were just visible through the thin skin, which allowed him to see a little while keeping the sand out of his eyes.

  “I wish I had two pairs of eyelids,” said Rel, whose own eyes were constantly full of dust. He hunkered low over his bowl to shelter it, but a rush of sand fell from his robes into his food. In disgust, he set the bowl by Aramaz’s snout. The dracon noisily ate, croaking happily.

  “You enjoy it,” said Rel. “I don’t have much stomach for grit.”

  He dusted his hands off and stood up. The wind blew stronger and hotter than ever. There was not a cloud in the sky, but his view was partially obscured by persistent airborne sand that formed a brown smoke extending a hundred feet into the air. It was a strange wind. If he went up the valley sides, he was out of the worst of it. It clung close to the ground. On ridges further than a half mile from the main range of soaring cliffs no veils of dust blew at all. The infrequent grasses of sheltered spaces did not move. Over the valley, the wind ran at differing speeds, creating spectacular laminar flows, rivers of dust moved as independent sheets over each other, so they appeared like living strata of rock. The effect was entrancing, when the wind wasn’t blowing into his eyes.

  “This wind is not natural,” he said. But of course, he knew that. He kept his eye on these sheets, because the Brass God had told him to expect them. The time for his departure neared.

  He leaned down and scratched Aramaz’s head. The dracon
’s plumage rose and fell in pleasure, tickling the underside of his wrist.

  The tuneless clonking of a modalman gong sounded through the wind. Others joined it, until the valley resounded. Rel had Aramaz tethered a way from any modalman hearth. The giants were hazy forms in the murk. Their laughter had stopped, and they were walking purposefully, all of them heading toward their kin bands. Already those nearest to their camps had found their place, and were gathering in circles about extinguished campfires.

  Horns warbled.

  “It’s beginning,” said Rel. He looked down at Aramaz. “I hope you’re ready. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”

  Aramaz croaked as Rel headed off back toward the campground of the Gulu Thek.

  WHEN REL REACHED Shkarauthir’s hearth the Gulu Thek were in the final stages of preparation for their rituals. The clan elders anointed the warriors’ foreheads with smudges of white paint, then red, then dotted the stripes with black. Already modalmen in nearby camps were standing motionless with their arms spread wide as tree boughs, eyes closed, humming in tune with the steady moan of the mountain’s breath. Their light patterns pulsed slowly, falling into time with one another, more sluggishly than when they slept. Their song blended eerily with the voice of the wind.

  Rel pelting into their midst upset the tranquility of the scene.

  “Shkarauthir!” Rel shouted.

  The king of the Gulu Thek turned soft brown eyes on Rel and raised an arm in greeting. “Little Rel! You are here in time for the dreams of the breath. It is good that you return. We shall meditate. You will be alone for a while. Do not stray. The world changes while the mountain breathes. It will not be safe.” He looked to his followers. “Leave us,” he said in the modalman tongue.

  The elders bowed to their king, and took their bowls of pigment away. Grauthek stood next to his lord, extended his lower arms diagonally to the ground and placed his upper hands, palms flat, together above his head. He stared at Rel and shut his eyes, then began to hum. Ger stood on the other side of the king, and likewise began to meditate.

  Shkarauthir took a deep breath, and led Rel a little distance away.

  “Of course, you will be leaving imminently,” said Shkarauthir, once his tribesmen were out of earshot. “The Brass God came to me in a dream, and told me so. We will all succumb to the trance, and you may go without risk. That sack there,” he pointed to a large bag, “contains supplies that should keep you alive until you reach the end of the petrified forest. Past there, you will come to a green country like your Farside. The land is hard, but you may hunt, and there is water. Follow the mountains, after many days they will turn south, and become the Appins. Northern Farside is not far after that, from there you may make your way home. It is a long journey, but with luck, you will return to your people.”

  “Drauthek drew me maps in the sand. I can find my way.”

  “Be safe, little one,” said Shkarauthir. The king of the Gulu Thek turned into the wind, and gracefully moved his arms into the same configuration as Drauthek and Ger.

  “Shkarauthir!” shouted Rel over the rising wind. “My people are starving in their cages. What will you do? Will you challenge Brauctha? I need to know whether this army you have here is going to go to the Kingdoms in peace or in war. What if I get back to the Kingdoms, secure safe passage for the modalmen, only for them to attack?”

  Shkarauthir’s eyes slid open a fraction. Ger and Brauctha’s humming had a soporific effect that made Rel tired. He fought against a desire to join the modalmen in their strange prayer. The wind’s strength was increasing.

  “What will be will be, little one,” said Shkarauthir, with the patience of a parent for its child. “We cannot rush things. Whether we go in war or peace I do not know. I hope for peace, but the true men are split equally. Perhaps in the voice of the wind, we will find guidance. Perhaps the Brass God will come and tell us his desires in person. What you told me is encouraging, but it is not enough.”

  “What if he does not come?”

  “Then we will wait some more.” Shkarauthir’s eyes closed.

  “I would be happier if you killed Brauctha.”

  “Now you sound like the man-eaters. I will not fight him, not while the peace of the moot holds. You will stay away from his encampment, little Rel. No good can come of it if you interfere. Leave your people. Our god warned you. Heed him.” The light in his markings was pulsing slowly.

  “Can you smell that?” said Rel, pointing behind him. “The rotting meat? The wind can’t hide it. Tell me that you will see what you can do for them.”

  “I will do what I can for them,” said Shkarauthir. “Do not aid them yourself. The risk is great.” His words were slurring. “Good fortune to you, small one. May we meet again under propitious circumstances.”

  “Shkarauthir!” said Rel, but the king’s tribal marks pulsed lethargically around the circuits of their tracks, and fell into time with those of the others. Shkarauthir was lost to the mountain’s breath.

  Rel took a couple of half steps backward, circling around. The wind was picking up. Modalmen stood still as the stone trees outside the camp. They faced the same direction, all tribes and clans, closed eyes pointing at the mountain.

  “Shit,” he said. “Shit!” This was it. He had to leave. He grabbed the sack.

  The wind blew so hard it threatened to push him down. Rel leaned sideways into it. His progress was pathetic. A gale howled through the giants. Hurrying sand rattled off Rel’s nomad clothes. Lumps of grit were carried in the blast, and they stung his skin through the layered cotton. In any other circumstances, Rel would seek shelter. This was a killing storm, the sort that would drive a man off his path and leave his corpse buried in the sand.

  After a long struggle he reached his mount. He roused Aramaz with great difficulty. The dracon screeched and croaked, reluctant to go into the storm. Rel stowed the supplies, and clambered onto the reptile’s back. The wind and Aramaz’s movements made that hard, and he was almost spilled from the saddle.

  Aramaz gladly broke into a run when his face was turned from the mountain. The wind pushed at Rel’s back, hurrying them through the camp. With the wind at the dracon’s tail, it was not so bad. The modalmen loomed out of the sandstorm like statues. Aramaz dodged past them, leaping over their hounds when they appeared suddenly on the ground, hidden by the drifting sand. Like their masters, the creatures of the modalmen remained utterly still, few of them even stirring as Aramaz galloped past.

  They reached the road. The palisade was ahead. Visibility was down to tens of feet. The edge of the valley was near. A sole campground stood between Rel and freedom.

  His heart sank.

  The men in cages were waiting for him. He was their only hope.

  He yanked hard on Aramaz’s reins, making the dracon shriek. He turned Aramaz around, and looked back up the road.

  “I’ll let them out,” he said. “Then I’ll be on my way.”

  TUVACS WORKED AT the loose bar in the cage. The modalmen had gone into a trance, prompting him from surreptitious picking at the wood into outright attack.

  “Quickly!” snarled Dunets. “Get the iron out! Get their keys! Release us all!”

  “We’re working on it,” snapped Rafozo.

  Only Rafozo and Tuvacs were close enough to the loose bar to get their hands on the wood. With no tools, they had to work at individual splinters with their fingernails to make a hole.

  “Stop a moment,” said Tuvacs.

  Rafozo moved back. Tuvacs ran his chains to the bottom of the bar and yanked hard. The bar shifted nearly all the way out of its socket, then jammed itself fast.

  “Almost got it!” He said. He kicked the bar back into place and yanked back and forth on it until it was rattling with every touch.

  Their lookout whistled from his station at the rear of the cage. “Driven gods, someone is coming! Work faster!”

  Rafozo grabbed Tuvacs arm. “Stop,” he said. “We should save this for anothe
r time.”

  “There won’t be another fucking time!” snarled Dunets. “Get out of here. Get the gods-damned keys, or I’ll kill you myself.”

  “It’s too late,” said Rafozo. “If they’re awake, then getting Tuvaco out of here will make no difference.”

  “He won’t be dead,” said Dunets. “That’s a start.”

  “They’ll kill him!”

  “They’ll kill us all anyway. Get out, Mohaci boy!”

  Tuvacs continued to yank hard.

  “Stop, Tuvaco!” said Rafozo. “There’ll be another chance.”

  “There won’t,” said Tuvacs.

  The lookout squinted into the wind. “It’s not a modalman! It’s a man, on a dracon!”

  Men ran their chains up the bars they were bound to so that they might stand and see.

  The rider drew up next to the cage, retrieved something from his belt and tossed it within.

  A bunch of keys clanked on the boards. There was a plain one for the door, and a number of identical manacle keys.

  “Captain Kressind!” said Tuvacs.

  “That it is,” Rel said. “Get yourselves out!” He shouted over the wind howling through the bars. “I took enough keys from the guards for all the wagons, but we don’t have much time. Get out, flee! Head west, along the mountain’s feet. There is good land in that direction.”

  Dunets had already snatched up the keys and was undoing his manacles as Rel was riding away.

  REL RODE UP and down the line, tossing bunches of keys into cages and shouting at the men inside to rouse themselves and escape. “Head west!” he shouted. “Follow the mountains, there is a gentle land a few day’s west of here.”

  The men were wretched, broken things. Whether the modalmen chased them or not, a handful would make it. The rest would die. But it was better that they die as men than experience the agony of being remade and having their personalities stripped away.