Where was the gift? Where was this something special?
He found it, next to the old mirror upstairs. The little wooden ship with a note tied with red string to it. Spidery, uneven words written on paper with an ink pen. This is you, Harry, the note said. He stared at the paper for a long time, then moved his eyes over the ship. He picked it up, touched it, felt the grain of the wood, the little knobs of dried glue. He remembered it, remembered making it, piece by piece. This wood was different. Each little plank was different. Every piece, replaced. He put the ship down and picked up the mirror.
It was old, older than his grandmother, for certain. A pitted, cloudy hand mirror in a handsome hardwood frame. Harry resisted the impulse to hit the full-power icon hovering amber in the lower right corner of his vision. He didn’t want to know what kind of wood it was or the details about how silvered mirrors worked. He watched himself, reflected in it, sitting in front of the attic window, smelling the dust but not breathing it in. Not breathing at all. Still in the way that only a machine can be still.
He saw artificial eyes; Harry had left them silver back in his boxing days, thinking they might be more intimating to opponents, more mysterious to women. Perhaps they had been. His features looked like his features. Younger, certainly, and without blemish (a Nuskin warranty saw to that) but his face. His hair was a polyester fiberoptic, softer and adjustable in length or color by himself or, much wiser, by a cosmetician with better taste and flair.
He stared at his face and suddenly an old story from his grandmother came to him. Old, older than himself, his country, than science itself. He remembered Wanda telling him of Athens. How it had been founded by Theses. They’d argued, good-naturedly—they were all good, respectful, fun arguments with Wanda—about whether or not there ever had been a Theses. Harry, full of thoughts of minotaurs and amazons, had said he was a myth. Grandma Wanda insisted he was not a myth but a legend. Something real that had grown.
Her evidence was his ship. The Athenians had kept his ship and sailed in it to a nearby island, to the temple of Apollo. They had done this up to the time of recorded history. And as each plank and piece of wood had rotted, the Athenians had lovingly and exactingly replaced it. This had gone on for centuries and by the time of Plutarch, surely not a single piece of original wood had remained. The question he’d asked her, dredged up from some horrible college philosophy course, was whether or not it still was the real ship of Theses?
Harry sat there, staring at himself, thinking of that ship, of the little ship his grandmother had left him, thinking of all the upgrades and replacements he’d made. Thinking of his titanium skull, his porcelain teeth, his Nuskin-coated, mechanical body and asked himself over and over: Am I still Harry Hermann? Am I still real?
He suddenly realized he was panting, that his body was trembling, soaked with sweat. Some subconscious subroutines running wild, clearly. He started locking those threads down. Just enough, so that he was under control again. And then he made himself take a breath he didn’t need, stood, and left the mirror… and the ship… behind.
OF METAL MEN AND SCARLET THREAD AND DANCING WITH THE SUNRISE
Ken Scholes
Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts found the metal man sobbing in an impact crater deep in the roiling smoke and glowing ruins of Windwir. He crouched over a pile of blackened bones, his shoulders chugging and his bellows wheezing, his helmet-like head shaking in his large metal hands. They approached him silently, ghosts in a city of ghosts, but the metal man still heard and looked up.
Gouts of steam shot from his exhaust grate. Boiling water leaked from his glassy jeweled eyes. Nearby lay a mangled metal leg.
“Lla meht dellik ev’I,” the metal man said.
The Gypsies drug him to Rudolfo because he could not stand on his own and refused to be supported. Rudolfo, from his tents outside the ruins, watched them return just like the message bird had promised.
They dragged the metal man into the clearing and released him, dropping the leg as well. Their bright colored tunics, cloaks and breeches were gray with ash and black from charcoal. The metal man gleamed in the afternoon sun.
They bowed and waited for Rudolfo to speak. “So this is all that’s left of the Great City of Windwir?”
To a man, they nodded. Slow, deliberate nods.
“And the Androfrancine Library?”
One of the Gypsy Scouts stepped forward. “It burned first and fastest, Lord.” The scout stepped back quickly, head bowed.
Rudolfo turned to the metal man. “And what do we have here?” He’d seen mechanicals before. Small ones, though, nothing quite so elaborate as a man. “Can you speak?”
“Llew etiuq kaeps nac I,” the metal man said.
Rudolfo looked again to his Gypsy Scouts. The same scout who’d spoken earlier looked up. “He’s been talking since we found him, Lord. It’s no language we’ve ever heard.”
Rudolfo smiled. “Actually, it is.” He turned back to the metal man. “Sdrawkcab kaeps,” he told him.
A pop, a clunk, a gout of steam. The metal man looked up at Rudolfo, at the smoke-filled sky and the blackened horizon that was once the world’s largest city. He shook and shuddered. When he spoke, his voice carried a depth of lament that Rudolfo had only heard twice before. “What have I done?” the metal man asked, his breast ringing as he beat it with his metal fist. “Oh, what have I done?”
Rudolfo reclined on silk cushions and drank sweet pear wine, watching the sunset wash the metal man red. His own personal armorer bent over the mechanical in the fading light, wiping sweat from his brow while working to re-attach the mangled leg.
“It’s no use, lord,” the metal man said.
The armorer grunted. “It’s nowhere close to good but it will serve.” He pushed himself back, glancing up at Rudolfo.
Rudolfo nodded. “Stand on it, metal man.”
The metal man used his hands to push himself up. The mangled leg would not bend. It sparked and popped but held as he stood.
Rudolfo waved. “Walk about.”
The metal man did, jerking and twitching, using the leg more as a prop.
Rudolfo sipped his wine and waved the armorer away. “I suppose now I should worry about escape?”
The metal man kept walking, each step becoming more steady. “You wish to escape, lord? You have aided me. Perhaps I may aid you?”
Rudolfo chuckled. “I meant you, metal man.”
“I will not escape.” The metal man hung his head. “I intend to pay fully for my crimes.”
Rudolfo raised his eyebrows. “What crimes are those exactly?” Then, remembering his manners but not sure if they extended to mechanicals, he pointed to a nearby stool. “Sit down. Please.”
The metal man sat. “I am responsible for the razing of Windwir and the genocide of the Androfrancines, lord. I do not expect a trial. I do not expect mercy. I expect justice.”
“What is your name?”
The metal man’s golden lids flickered over his jeweled eyes in surprise. “Lord?”
“Your name. What is your name?”
“I am Mechoservitor Number Three, catalog and translations section.”
“That’s no name. I am Rudolfo. Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses to some. General Rudolfo of the Wandering Army to others. That Damned Rudolfo to those I’ve bested in battle or in bed.”
The metal man stared at him. His mouth-shutters clicked open and closed.
“Very well,” Rudolfo finally said. “I will call you Isaak.” He thought about it for a moment, nodded, sipped more wine. “Isaak. Tell me how exactly you managed to raze the Knowledgeable City of Windwir and single-handedly wipe out the Androfrancine Order?”
“By careless words, lord, I committed these crimes.”
Rudolfo refilled his glass. “Go on.”
“Are you familiar, lord, with the Wizard Xhum Y’zir?”
Rudolfo was. He nodded.
“The Androfrancines found a cache of parchments in the Eastern Rises.
They bore a striking resemblance to Y’zir’s later work including his particular blend of Middle Landlish and Upper V’Ral. Even the handwriting matched.”
Rudolfo leaned forward, one hand stroking his long mustache. “These weren’t copies?”
The metal man shook his head. “Originals, lord. Naturally, they were brought back to the library. They assigned the translation and cataloging to me.”
Rudolfo picked a honeyed date out of a silver bowl and popped it into his mouth. He chewed around the pit, spitting it into a silk napkin. “You worked in the library.”
“Yes, lord.”
“Continue.”
“One of the parchments contained the missing text for Xhum Y’zir’s Seven Cacophonic Deaths—”
Here Rudolfo’s breath rushed out. He felt the blood flee so quickly from his face that he tingled. He raised his hand and fell back into the cushions. “Gods, a moment.”
The metal man, Isaak, waited.
Rudolfo sat back up, drained off the last of his wine in one swallow and refilled the glass. “The Seven Cacophonic Deaths? You’re sure?”
The metal man shook in one great sob. “I am now, lord.”
A hundred questions flooded Rudolfo. Each shouted to be asked. He opened his mouth to ask the first but closed it when Gregoric, the First Captain of his Gypsy Scouts, slipped into the tent with a worried expression on his face.
“Yes?” he asked.
“General Rudolfo, we’ve just received word that Overseer Sethbert of the Entrolusian City States approaches.”
Rudolfo felt anger rise. “Just?”
Gregoric paled. “Their scouts are magicked, Lord.”
Rudolfo leaped to his feet, reaching for his thin, long sword. “Bring the camp to Third Alarm,” he shouted. He turned on the metal man. “Isaak, you will wait here.”
Isaak nodded.
Then General Rudolfo of the Wandering Army, Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses, raced from the tent bellowing for his armor and horse.
Battlefields, Rudolfo thought, should not require etiquette nor be considered affairs of state. He remained mounted at the head of his army while his captains parleyed with the Overseer’s captains in a moonlit field between the two camps. On the horizon, Windwir smoldered and stank. At last, they broke from parley and his captains returned.
“Well?” he asked.
“They also received the birds and came to offer assistance.”
He sneered. “Came to peck the corpses clean more likely.” Rudolfo had no love for the City States, hunkered like obese carrion birds at the delta of the Three Rivers, imposing their tariffs and taxes as if they owned those broad, flat waters and the sea they spilled into. He looked at Gregoric. “And did they share with you why they broke treaty and magicked their scouts at a time of peace?”
Gregoric cleared his throat. “They thought that perhaps we had ridden against Windwir and were honoring their kin-clave. I took the liberty of reminding them of our own kin-clave with the Androfrancines.”
Rudolfo nodded. “So when do I meet with the tremendous sack of moist runt droppings?”
His other captains laughed quietly behind their hands. Gregoric scowled at them. “They will send a bird requesting that you dine with the Overseer and his Lady.”
Rudolfo’s eyebrows rose. “His Lady?”
Perhaps, he thought, it would not be so ponderous after all.
He dressed in rainbow colors, each hue declaring one of his houses. He did it himself, waving away assistance but motioning for wine. Isaak sat, unspeaking and unmoving, while Rudolfo wrapped himself in silk robes and scarves and sashes and turban.
“I have a few moments,” he told the metal man. “Tell more of your story.”
Light deep in those jeweled eyes sparked and caught. “Very well, lord.” A click, a clack, a whir. “The parchment containing the missing text of Xhum Y’zir’s Seven Cacophonic Deaths came to me for cataloging and translation, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Rudolfo said.
“I worked under the most careful of circumstances. We kept the new text isolated in a secure location with no danger of the missing words being added to complete the incantation. I was the only mechoservitor to work with the parchment and all knowledge of my previous work with prior fragments was carefully removed.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Removed how?”
The metal man tapped his head. “It’s… complex. I do not fully understand it myself. But the Androfrancines write metal scrolls and those metal scrolls determine our capacity, our actions, our inactions, our memories.” Isaak shrugged.
Rudolfo studied three different pairs of soft slipper. “Go on.”
The metal man sighed. “There is not much more to tell. I catalogued, translated and copied the missing text. I spent three days and three nights with it, calculating and re-calculating my work. In the end, I returned to Brother Charles to have the memory of my work expunged.”
A sudden thought struck him and Rudolfo raised a hand, unsure why he was so polite with the mechanical. “Is memory of your work always removed?”
“Seldom, actually. Only when the work is of a sensitive or dangerous nature.”
“Remind me to come back to this question later,” Rudolfo said. “Meanwhile, continue. I must leave soon.”
“I put the parchment in its safe, left the catalog room and watched the Androfrancine Gray Guard lock it behind me. I returned to Brother Charles but his study was locked. I waited.” The metal man whirred and clicked.
Rudolfo selected a sword in an intricate scabbard, thrusting it through his sash. “And?”
The metal man began to shake. Steam poured out of his exhaust grate. His eyes rolled and a high pitched whine emanated from somewhere deep inside.
“And?” Rudolfo said, sharpness creeping into his voice.
“And all went blank for a moment. My next memory was standing in the city square, shouting the words of the Seven Cacophonic Deaths—all of the words—into the morning sky. I tried to stop the utterance.” He sobbed again, his metal body shuddering and groaning. “I could not stop. I tried but could not stop.”
Rudolfo felt the mechanical’s grief, sharp and twisting, in his stomach. He stood at the flap of his tent, needing to leave and not knowing what to say.
The metal man continued. “Finally, I reversed my language scroll. But it was too late. The Death Golems came. The Plague Spiders scuttled. Fire fell from sulfur clouds. All seven deaths.” He sobbed again.
Rudolfo stroked his beard. “And why do you think this happened?”
The metal man looked up, shaking his head. “I don’t know, lord. Malfunction, perhaps.”
“Or malfeasance,” Rudolfo said. He clapped and Gregoric appeared, slipping out of the night to stand by his side. “I want Isaak here under guard at all times. No one talks to him but me. Do you understand?”
Gregoric nodded. “I understand, General.”
Rudolfo turned to the metal man. “Do you understand as well?”
“Yes, lord.”
Rudolfo leaned over the metal man to speak quietly in his ear. “Take courage,” he said. “It is possible that you were but the tool of someone else’s ill-will.”
Isaak’s words, quoted from the Whymer Bible, surprised him. “Even the plow holds love for splitting the ground; and the sword grief for spilling the blood.”
Rudolfo’s fingers lightly brushed a polished shoulder. “We’ll talk more when I return.”
Outside, the sky grayed in readiness for morning. Rudolfo felt weariness creeping behind his eyes and in the tips of his fingers. He had stolen naps here and there but hadn’t slept a full night since the message bird’s arrival five days before, calling him and his Wandering Army south and west. After the meal, he told himself. He would sleep then.
His eyes lingered on the ruined city painted purple in the pre-dawn light.
“Gods,” he whispered. “What an unexpected weapon.”
Sethbert did not meet him at the edge of h
is army; instead, Rudolfo rode in escort to the massive round tent. He snapped and waved and flashed hand-signs to his Gypsy Scouts, who slipped off to take up positions around the tent.
Sethbert rose when he entered, a tired smile pulling at his long mustache and pock-marked jowls. His lady rose, too, tall and slim, draped in green riding silks. Her red hair shone like the sunrise. Her blue eyes flashed an amused challenge and she smiled.
“Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses,” the squire at the door announced. “General of the Wandering Army.”
He entered, handing his long sword to the squire. “I come in peace to break bread,” he said.
“We receive you in peace and offer the wine of gladness to be so well met,” Sethbert replied.
Rudolfo nodded and approached the table.
Sethbert clapped him on the back. “Rudolfo, it is good to see you. How long has it been?”
Not long enough, he thought. “Too long,” he said. “How are the cities?”
Sethbert shrugged. “The same. We’ve had a bit of trouble with smugglers but it seems to have sorted itself out.”
Rudolfo turned to the lady. She stood a few inches taller than him.
“Yes. My consort, the Lady Jin Li Tam of House Li Tam.” Sethbert stressed the word consort and Rudolfo watched her eyes narrow slightly when he said it.
“Lady Tam,” Rudolfo said. He took her offered hand and kissed it, his eyes never leaving hers.
She smiled. “Lord Rudolfo.”
They all sat and Sethbert clapped three times. Rudolfo heard a clunk and a whir from behind a hanging tapestry. A metal man walked out, carrying a tray with glasses and a carafe of wine. This one was older than Isaak, his edges more box-like and his coloring more copper.
“Fascinating, isn’t he?” Sethbert said while the metal man poured wine. He clapped again. “Servitor, I wish the chilled peach wine tonight.”
The machine gave a high pitched whistle. “Deepest apologies, Lord Sethbert, but we have no chilled peach wine.”
Sethbert grinned, then raised his voice in false anger. “What! No peach wine? That is inexcusable, servitor.”
Bless Your Mechanical Heart Page 22