by Jeff Grubb
When he was done, Urza rose, and there was a new fire in his eyes. “So, my brother,” he said, “you didn’t finish this, either. Sharaman!”
“Yes, Sire!”
“I want you to take our remaining forces south. Regroup what you can and fortify the ports.”
“Yes, Sire. And what of you?”
“I am going to find the knowledge that Tawnos saved for me. Rendall!”
“Sanwell, Sire.”
“Are there any other from the school here?”
Sanwell looked around at the desolation. “No, Sire.”
“Then you’ll come with me,” said Urza sharply. “We have to find out where your brother went with my work and begin again.”
“And this time,” said the Chief Artificer among the wreckage of Kroog, “this time, I will not stay my hand or feel mercy for you, Brother. This time there will be a reckoning. I swear it!”
And as if in response to his words, a cold wind blew up from the river, scattering ashes around his feet.
* * *
—
The Caverns of Koilos had visitors. Non-Argivian visitors.
They were from a monastery along the northern shores of the continent, a theocracy that celebrated the power and the majesty of the Thran, and more importantly, their devices. They claimed a large territory, but they had been relatively reclusive. They found that other cultures did not share their respect for the machine’s workings, that others sought to barter them, like the Fallaji, or to make pale shadows of the Thran creations, like the Argivians. So they remained a quiet people, venturing out only rarely beyond their borders.
Until the dreams came. They began over a year ago, first one brother, then another, then a third, all consumed by the same vision: a world of machines far beyond the abilities of the Thran; living engines of steel and cable, of indestructible hearts pumping vital oils through the body; steel leaves and saw-toothed grasses; a world that rained oil and bloomed with mechanism.
In short, paradise.
And the dreams enraptured the dreamers with its siren call, urging them to leave their lands, to come to the center of the dream, and to work miracles there at the center.
Under the urgings of the dream, the Brotherhood of Gix responded. Two dozen of the most trusted brothers, those who had served the cause of the machine most devotedly, left their homes and headed south.
They avoided the Malpiri tribesmen who regularly raided their lands, but a few fell to the dangers of the desert itself—exposure, heat, and bandits. Only a dozen arrived at Koilos a year later, and they were an emaciated lot, dressed in windblown rags and possessing a wideeyed, fanatical expression.
As they traveled, the dreams grew stronger in them. The dreams showed them the canyon that would lead them to their goal, and the cavern that they would find there. They pulled out ancient stones that glowed of their own light and journeyed within the cave, stepping around the wreckage of ancient machines that had been tested and found insufficient in the eyes of their great machine god.
At last they stood before the great machine. They took their gathered light stones and placed them within the machine as they had been instructed by their dreams and passed their hands over the mysterious book of glyphs. The fact that they could not read the glyphs bothered them not. The only thing that mattered was the dream, and the dream told them what to do.
The monks of the Brotherhood of Gix were not surprised when the lights of the cavern flickered to life around them, nor when the machines themselves began to sing, communing with each other and singing praises to their god. Delight flickered on the faces of the Gixians, knowing that their dreams were about to become reality.
A great disk formed in the middle of the air, like an oil puddle that had been turned on its side. It shimmered with a rainbow of colors not found on this earth, for these were rather the colors of dreams. The pool widened to the height and width of a tall man, and something stepped through it.
It was tall and humanoid. It seemed to be wearing an armor of black metallic snakes, but to the monks’ delight, they recognized that it was the skin of the being, a skin of metal and coils. Its face was skeleton-white and it sprouted more tendrils from its head, great blood-colored serpents.
As one, the monks fell to their knees in worship.
The godly being, servant of the machine god, stood before its glowing portal. It sniffed the air, as if experiencing it for the first time. It stretched its sinewy cable-muscles and turned its head from side to side, testing the extent of its body.
One of the monks, the leader among the survivors, slowly rose and spoke. “Welcome, most holy creation. What may we call you, that we may better serve you?”
The machine being looked at each of them, and there was a soft mental caress as its mind touched theirs. It had been the one to send the dreams, they realized. It had been the one to call them to this place.
The machine being’s lips whirred as they formed themselves into a smile. “Gix,” it said at last, in a voice only Mishra and Ashnod had heard before. “You may call me…Gix.”
The imperial court had changed while Ashnod had been away, which was no surprise to the apprentice. In the year since the fall of Kroog, she had left and returned a half-dozen times, and upon each return she discovered some new wing or pit or chamber had been added to the court of the new qadir of the Fallaji.
Mishra had selected a site on the northwest tip of the Kher Ridges, with a dominating view of the arid lands to the west. Through a trick of the weather patterns, this area was well watered and was swathed in trees so large that they might have been planted by the Thran themselves. They were some type of oak, with thick, heavy trunks and long, horizontal branches. Already some of the quarters and laboratories were being nestled among those branches. When Mishra became qadir, Ashnod reflected, he wished to set down roots. Perhaps, among the great trees, this was what he meant, literally. The first time she had seen the site, she had trouble believing that such huge growths had blossomed in a land that was elsewhere bone-dry and arid.
Surrounding the grove of great trees, most of the smaller timbers (still great, towering oaks and younger maples) downslope had been cleared. Part of the clearing was for cultivation, but more of it was for smaller foundries and forges. Already the residue of those forges spilled slag, the unusable remains of their industry, down the slopes and into the streams at the foot of the hills.
The latest addition was a great barn that dominated an area at one end of the encampment. It was constructed of half-hoops of metal with fabric stretched between them. Already slave laborers were laying stonework for permanent walls along the base.
Ashnod let a slave-stablehand take her horse and entered the workshop proper. One of the great trees had died eons ago, leaving a massive stump over sixty feet high and twice that in diameter. Mishra had the stump hollowed out and converted into his own private workshop to rival the crushed orniary in now-dead Kroog. Now that workshop towered above her, the windows carved through its outer bark lit by fires within. The windows were oddly shaped, formed more by the twists of the once-living bark than by Mishra’s own needs. To Ashnod, the windows looked like malignant, winking eyes.
The rooms within were similar—odd, strange shapes that resembled teardrops or spirals or multi-planed solids. Rooms rose slightly from one end to the other or were constructed of numerous terraces, each with different machinery. Ashnod had no doubt that there were additional rooms within the structure that had not been there when she had last been present. Such was the sprawling nature of the new qadir’s domains.
One thing that had not changed was the treasure piled in the hallways, the remains of the initial looting of Kroog. There was gold platterware and cracked crystal, gems spilling out of wooden boxes split by rough handling, and rare vases of blue and white glazing with longitudinal cracks running from rim to base. All of it was gathered to celebrate the power of the Raqi of the Suwwardi, their new Qadir-by-Acclamation of the Fallaji Empire, the mig
hty Mishra.
One wall had been cleared to allow diplomats, supplicants, courtiers, and other parasites to wait at Mishra’s whim. Ashnod did not have to wait, of course, and breezed past these poor wretches. She felt the pressure of their eyes as she passed and smiled. That was one of the good things about returning to Mishra’s workshop.
The workshop proper was two parts library, two parts workshop, and two parts throne room. A great dark oak throne had been pushed against one wall, piled high with pillows and resting on a carpet of pure, regal purple, pulled from the wreckage of the palace of Kroog.
The throne was flanked on both sides by piles of books. There were books looted from Yotia and shipped from Zegon and Tomakul, huge folios and small personal diaries, scrolls and tablets and all manner of journals, bound in leather of beasts both common and forgotten. Ashnod noted, not for the first time, that many of the volumes had gathered a thin patina of dust and had not been disturbed since their initial placement.
Ashnod thought of Urza’s workshop. Even cleaned and organized for their visit, it had a cluttered look. But it was a busy clutter, an organized chaos, one that was continually in motion, continually evolving. The books in Mishra’s workshop might as well be blank for the amount of use they saw.
Mishra was not on his throne. While the others cooled their heels outside, he was at a great slate board, another prize of the war, that had been hung along one curved wall. Mishra had been working in multi-colored chalk, and out of the rainbow smears of his writings and frequent erasures, there arose the portrait of a dragon engine’s head, bedecked with arcane letters and illegible scribbles.
Hajar, ever-faithful Hajar, stood by the throne and announced Ashnod’s presence, which was fortunate, for Ashnod felt that Mishra would not bother to look up otherwise.
Mishra regarded Ashnod, and the apprentice could sense a tenseness, a coiled-spring nervousness, in the master. He tapped the chalk against the slate a few more times, then tossed the chalk into its box, and padded toward his throne.
“Report,” he grunted as he retook his place among the pillows.
With each of her visits Mishra had become more brusque, more abrupt with her. Elevated to the supreme position and with the added responsibilities of running the far-flung empire, he had no longer any time to be polite, even if he had the inclination.
“Plunder from the Yotian provinces,” said Ashnod, proffering an inventory list that Hajar took. She folded her hands before her for a dry recitation. “Four thousand pounds of gold, six thousand of silver, including two thousand buillon, seventeen vases in good condition filled with gemstones worth…”
Mishra waved away Ashnod’s words, and said, “Books?”
Ashnod sighed. Master Mishra had become more impatient of late. “Five new volumes on alchemy not in your collection. Three volumes on optics. Two on hydraulics that may be of vital interest, and one volume on metallurgy in the Yotian style, which may prove invaluable. One on clocks which sings the praises of its author. Records of gem-cutting, tinsmithing, and architecture. The standard collection of journals and diaries that will have to be read to determine if they contain anything useful. A large number of maps, most of Korlisian trading routes.”
Mishra nodded, folded hands before him, and patted his fingers together. “Usable resources.”
“Three new mines have been seized, bringing the total to seventeen,” said Ashnod. “There were eighteen, but Yotian rebels pulled the main support frames out from one, choosing to seal themselves inside rather than surrender. Four foundries have been dismantled and are being relocated here, and they should be operational within two months. Smaller forges are being set up in the Suwwardi Marches. Lumbering continues in northern Yotia, but under armed protection.”
Mishra nodded again, and said, “News.”
“More of the same,” said Ashnod. “The surviving Yotian towns along the coast are willing to pay tribute and swear fealty, at least on the surface. However, raids and rebellions are common from the Suwwardi Marches south. As a result, any timetable involving Yotian resources is questionable at best. There is no shortage of slaves from among the captured revolutionaries and fallen towns.”
Ashnod was gilding the truth at best. For the first time the Fallaji were controlling a population not of Fallaji blood and with it the traditional ties to the qadir. A more heavily armed presence was needed in Yotia to control the people and guard the plunder. That tied down manpower, and the Fallaji hated to be tied down.
Mishra did not pursue the nature of the unrest in his new conquests. Instead he simply said, “And my brother?”
“Still beyond the Kher Ridges,” said Ashnod. The report always devolved down to this simple question and Ashnod’s simple response. The plunder, the resources, the knowledge were all secondary to the activities of Mishra’s brother.
“As far as you know,” said Mishra.
Ashnod sighed, trying to hide her impatience. Since taking the mantle of command, Mishra had changed, and not for the better. “As far as we currently know. Ornithopters have been sighted along all the major passes eastward. But there has been no organized Yotian resistance. Urza is said to have established an encampment in Argive, near the Korlis border, but Korlis swears neutrality in the matter in exchange for access to Fallaji markets.”
Hajar made a huffing noise. Most of the Fallaji considered the Korlisians as bad as the Yotians, spreading honeyed lies of friendship while driving the hardest of bargains. Were the Korlis merchants truly interested in pleasing the Fallaji, they would have captured Urza and turned him over when Mishra’s brother had crossed into their territory.
“What is he waiting for?” said Mishra, patting his fingers together. “It’s been a year.”
“The loss of Kroog and most of northern Yotia has struck him hard,” said Ashnod. “He may simply be in hiding.”
“He never hides,” said Mishra hotly. “He plots. He plans. He is still in communication with the Yotian towns, I am sure of it, and the rebels act on his command. He is waiting for the right moment. For the moment of weakness. Of inattentiveness. And then…,” Mishra raised both hands to indicate the magnitude of his brother’s imagined revenge.
Ashnod bit her lip, then said, “If that is the case, perhaps we should lay siege to the remaining Yotian towns and plunder them as well, denying him any further resources. Our dragon engines have been quiet for surprisingly long.”
Mishra made a grunting noise and slid off his throne. He motioned for Ashnod to follow as he headed for a side door to his throne room. Ashnod followed, and the rear of the procession was brought up by Hajar.
The side door led to a spiral stairway that corkscrewed through the once-living wood of the workshop. That in turn led to a postern gate alongside the massive stump. Mishra walked through the new barn, a curious Ashnod and an impassive Hajar in tow. A few of the slaves building the walls paused to watch them pass and earned a beating from the slavemasters for their effrontery.
The interior of the new building was a single room dominated by two great machines. Small figures, scholars sent by Zegon and Tomakul, and students from among the brightest of the Fallaji, climbed over the machines like ants over a carcass.
The first of the machines looked very much like a carcass. It was one of the dragon engines, lying on its side. Its lower treads had been removed, and the plates along its belly had been pried loose to reveal the network of cables beneath. These had been uncoiled, like entrails, to reveal pumps and servos within the heart of the beast. Several small gems glittered weakly within the great wounds of the creation, but for the most part it was an inert thing, a dead creature.
Alongside it was a second dragon engine, which resembled the first as a child’s drawing of a horse resembles the real creature. It was all hammered angles and sharp edges, and lacked the graceful, fluid styling of the partially dismantled creature beside it. Its face was similar, but frozen in a parody of the original dragon engine. Its muscles were not fluid cables, but roug
hly hewn slabs of metal held together by rivets and welds.
The second dragon engine was under construction, and as Ashnod watched, the scholars and students managed to get it to raise a foreleg. It was functional, but it looked less a living thing than the damaged beast next to it.
“It was injured in Kroog,” said Mishra, regarding the fallen dragon engine, his face almost pained by the sight, “against one of my brother’s accursed avengers. It survived the battle, but one by one its systems began to fail. It faltered, it was paralyzed along one side, and then it went blind. There was nothing for it but to slowly monitor its decay. None beyond this encampment know this.”
Ashnod shrugged. “You have the other dragon engines.”
“And the same may happen to them,” said Mishra hotly. “I don’t know what tricks my brother has planned, and with each day, he may have more of them. Can you imagine what would happen if one of these engines collapsed on the battlefield? What if the enemy saw that my creations were defeatable?”
Ashnod thought about it, then nodded slowly.
“And my brother is capable of defeating them. This I know,” said Mishra. “If only I had remained alongside it, but no, instead I chose to take an engine in a fruitless pursuit of one of Urza’s ornithopters, thinking it held possible hostages. A small error on my part, but a fatal one for this engine. If I had remained in Kroog, this one would still be functional.”
If you had remained in Kroog, thought Ashnod, you would likely not be qadir now. But Mishra knew nothing of that, nor of her involvement with Tawnos and the queen. She only nodded.
Mishra waved at the other construct. “And this is but a shadow. A puppet crafted to resemble the original. It has most of the power, and none of the grace of the original. None of the sentience. None of the life. There are secrets locked within the dying body, terrible secrets that are beyond our power to duplicate. Perhaps Urza…” Mishra’s voice trailed off, then returned with iron behind the tone. “Urza could, which is why we must ready these new engines, new devices, to keep him at bay.”