by E. M. Hardy
Uhi’s tone stung Martin, especially since she started referring to him as a thing rather than a person.
“And this thing just saved our lives by delaying the akinji.” The prince turned to the eyeball, which floated at eye level as everyone kept their distance. “Let me guess: the raiders were thoroughly surprised to encounter a shayateen this far into the desert, and from the bodies of a comrade that fell? Am I right, Martin?”
“Yes.”
“And there you have it,” the prince said as he turned toward Uhi, crossing his own arms and jutting out his chin. “The akinji don’t scare easy, and like what Munjid said, they could have simply broken through Martin’s lines to resume the chase. It was the fear of the shayateen that drove them to retreat, not Martin’s forces.”
“And is it worth making a pact with demons, Suhaib? Is it worth risking our lives and our souls to work with someone who can so easily call the shayateen upon us? To consume us all and unleash a maelstrom of malice?” She turned a baleful eye toward Martin’s eyeball, sneering as she did so. “Will we allow this thing to destroy us all?”
Her expression of scorn, and the expressions of the other jinn around her, was what ticked Martin off. “Let me tell you this, Uhi—and I speak to you not as a thing to despise but as a fellow being that feels, fears, loves, and hates. I bear no ill will toward you or your people. I do not know what I am, but I learn more with each passing day. What I have learned today is that my creators have armed me with the same weapons that their enemies wielded against them. I willingly admit that these weapons may be dangerous, but I also admit that I have no idea what to do with this knowledge.
“Now let me ask you this: will you help me understand what I have become, help control the dangers that these abilities I have discovered bring, in order to help fight against these invaders that will come sooner or later? Or will you cast me out and leave me to learn these lessons on my own—without the guidance, the caution, of those who know more about this than I do?”
The lens of Martin’s eyeball focused squarely on Uhi, giving her an ultimatum to answer. She glared right back at it, neither of them submitting.
“You know, when I was a little boy…” it was Faadi, who coughed into his hand before speaking up to break the stalemate, “…I remember seeing my father stash something into a colorful little box that he kept high on the shelf. He always told me to stay away from the box, but he never really explained to me what was inside it. Being an impulsive child, I waited until he was in his shop and snuck into his room. I climbed up a chair, pulled myself on top of the shelves, and reached for that box. When I opened it up, it was full of this bland brown stuff that smelled funny. I put it back, disinterested, and clambered down.
“I only learned much later that it was my father’s private hashish stash. It was the stuff he smoked when he had a day off, though I never knew its importance at the time.”
Faadi went quiet and lazily fiddled the reins of his camel as he sat on his mount. Everyone had their eyes on him now, waiting for him to continue; he did not. Uhi blew out a frustrated sigh, eventually breaking off eye-contact with Martin’s eyeball and turning toward Faadi. “Okay. I’ll bite, Faadi. What is the moral of this story? Educate the ignorant? Teach the stupid kid, don’t push him away? Hide your hash so your children won’t get it? What?”
The old man grinned in victory as he squared-off against Uhi. “No particular lesson. I just wanted to give you a chance to reflect upon your words and come up with your own reasons for accepting Martin’s offer.”
Uhi literally glowed with resentment, her eyes brightening with anger as her veil fluttered with an exhaled harrumph. Then she deflated and followed it up with a chuckle. “Yes, I already answered my own question, didn’t I? Wily old man. I would have blinded you for your impudence if you weren’t Suhaib’s friend.”
Faadi smiled and Suhaib breathed a sigh of relief as the tension left the air. Uhi, however, had to have the last word.
“So now that we’re consorting with a summoner of shayateen…” Suhaib groaned, slapping his face with his palm, while the smile behind Uhi’s veil grew predatory as she turned to Martin’s eyeball, “…why don’t you start from the beginning on what, exactly, happened?”
Chapter 20
Martin breathed a figurative sigh of relief when Suhaib and his group made it safely into the mountains. The walkers he had sent met them well ahead of the mountains, near the hidden valley pyramid, but he was only sure of their security when they made it into the protective embrace of the mountains. Empress Zi Li had agreed to send a relief force, bringing food and water to resupply Suhaib’s exhausted forces. They would meet up with Suhaib’s group mid-way and escort them to Five Gorges City to rest and recuperate. Once they would have recovered, they would then head on to the Red City for an audience with the Empress.
Martin was also surprised to learn that Yao Xiu and the other historians were going along with the supply convoy. She was tasked with helping Suhaib and the others learn Renese as fast as possible, while she in turn would do her best to learn Bashri. Martin would make her job a lot easier since he could act as an interpreter for the two languages.
All in all, it would take about two to three weeks for Suhaib to conclude his business in Ren, then another three months of travel on the return to Ma’an. If Martin’s dolls and cow-boxes could finish the road to Ma’an, Suhaib estimated that they would be able to cut down the travel time to just a single month. This would prevent them from having to wade through the sands of the Bashri, traveling instead on steady roads.
To Martin, that was slow as molasses. To Suhaib, it was unbelievably fast progress. To be fair, the young prince had expected his original expedition through the mountains to take years. The Qleb Sierra, the Yanshi Mountains, the Puruzlu Mountains—the names varied depending on who was talking. What everyone knew, however, was that the mountains were utterly treacherous and devoid of life. It was a perfect base for Martin, considering his constructs thrived only on the energies created by the spherical generators hidden away in the pyramids. For living people who needed food and water and just the right environment, the unforgiving landscape of the mountains would be hell to deal with. Go too high, and the air was thin and cold. Go too low, and the air was laden with toxins seeping up from the ground. The sweet spot of survival was filled with loose, rocky terrain that was subject to frequent rockslides. Fortunately for Suhaib’s party, Martin had been able to divert nearby dolls to start building roads at this narrow band of survivability. They had already carved out a solid path through the habitable ranges of the mountains and reinforced the surrounding cliffs with rock-and-clay walls, minimizing the risk of rockfalls.
Martin’s consciousness was split in a thousand different directions, but he had prioritized his focus on two major projects: building his way to Ma’an and to the ruined pyramids that Suhaib had pointed out earlier.
Martin divided the 2,072 walkers that he had sent to reinforce Suhaib’s group. 2,000 were assigned to protect the constructs making their way to Ma’an, while the remaining 72 went along with the constructs going to the desert ruins. These numbers were but a fraction of what Martin had in mind.
He had previously focused on building constructs that would support expansion and production. The dolls, for their ability to shape not just the clay that formed the base of all his constructs, but to shape the necessary tools to build and repair whatever was needed. The cow-boxes, for their excellent carrying capacity that significantly boosted his logistics. The eyeballs, for their ability to fly over terrain and scout much further than what the other constructs could reach. The walkers simply did not have the same utility as the other constructs, which was why he had not focused on them much.
Now though, with the prospect of war looming over the horizon, Martin began concentrating on his combat-ready walkers. He had direct control over them, and they came in a humanoid form that he was most familiar with. Their ability to absorb souls
and create undead shayateen gave him an advantage, though he felt that the undead were more of a side-effect of sucking up souls. The rush of power he had felt when he absorbed the souls of those raiders was a weapon he simply could not ignore—especially when it was the whole reason that the invaders ‘harvested’ this world on a regular basis.
This was why he had turned his attention to steadily producing more walkers in the Qleb Sierra pyramid, which was fully repaired by now. He had 20 production vats, each capable of churning out 120 walkers a day for a grand total of 2,400 walkers every twenty-four hours. He planned to send out wave after wave of walkers to the Bashri desert, just in case Suhaib’s guesses were right. If he was correct and the raiders were a prelude to major military action by the other emirates, then he would need to crank out as many walkers as he could field. He wanted to utilize the vastly-superior production facilities in the Leizhu Swamp, especially when he was done repairing it. His agreement with Empress Zi Li, however, kept him in check. He was off to a good start as her vassal, and he did not want to antagonize her by suddenly flooding her lands with thousands of walkers.
The thing was that Martin did not want to actually fight. Though he had felt a rush of power from absorbing souls, he had felt a far stronger sense of relief when the akinji had turned around and decided to pull back. That, and the jinn’s reaction to his soul-sucking as well as its unintended consequences was not something he looked forward to dealing with in the future. He would much rather find some way to negotiate with these rival emirates, get them to back down instead of forcing a battle with them.
That gave him an idea, though. If he could flood the Bashri with walkers, outnumber the enemy forces by a wide enough margin, maybe they would stand down instead of fight back. This was another reason why he wanted to manufacture as many walkers as he could.
The only problem with that idea was that Martin’s control over his constructs was not as limitless as he first thought.
When he had built a total of 8,000 walkers, Martin started feeling a sense of unease that he could easily ignore. He attributed it to being nervous about a possible battle in the Bashri region, nothing he couldn’t deal with. At 9,000 walkers, he had to focus more intently to keep his walkers marching steadily onward. What used to be second nature to him now took more attention to properly execute. At 10,000 walkers, he found it difficult to execute finer tasks. They had trouble staying in formation, and he had to expend a significant amount of effort to keep them marching at a steady pace. He stopped production altogether, worried about what was going on, and started investigating the cause of this confusion.
He got his answer soon enough.
Martin’s dolls had finished repairing one of the generators in the swamp pyramid while he was busy making walkers. As soon as they finished their task and activated the generator, he immediately felt the cloud of confusion ease up somewhat. It still took some effort to keep his walkers in line, but it was a lot easier compared to before.
It seemed that the generators in the pyramids affected not just his range of control but his overall ability to control constructs as well. As a test, he prioritized the repair of other generators in the Leizhu Swamp pyramid. He had been previously clearing out flooded tunnels, repairing breaches that allowed water in, and salvaging the broken pieces of machinery within the pyramid’s depths. Now he halted all other projects and had his dolls focus solely on repairing the generators that they could find.
A few days later, and his suspicions were confirmed: the generators played a role in determining the maximum number of constructs he could field at any one time.
He counted the number of generators he had up and running. The pyramid in the Qleb Sierra had 10 standard generators and 5 smaller backup generators. The Leizhu Swamp pyramid had 1 large generator, 9 standard generators, and 5 backup generators. The Hidden Valley pyramid, which was more outpost than actual base, had 2 standard generators and a single backup generator.
When his dolls repaired a standard generator, he found he could effectively control another 500 walkers. A small backup generator expanded his control by 100 walkers. When his dolls got around to fixing a large generator, his control limit went up by 1,000.
As things stood, Martin found that he could field around 12,000 walkers before his control started to get sketchy. 13,400 was the absolute limit, though his walkers already showed signs of degrading functionality. It did more harm than good pushing his limits, so he held off on further production until more generators were up and running.
While his dolls were repairing generators, Martin tested out his limits by building more of the other constructs. They were not tied directly to his consciousness, but they drew upon the same power grid that the generators and obelisks set up. He churned out swarms of dolls to mine, build, and repair. He sent out small fleets of eyeballs to expand visibility and keep a better eye over the expansive Bashri Desert. Finally, he built hordes of cow-boxes to serve as both carriers and cavalry support for the walkers.
While Martin did not feel any burden from building the other constructs, he noticed that they started to act sluggish when their combined numbers reached the 6,000-mark. Idle dolls sat tiredly on the ground, plopping their rounded bottoms on the ground instead of playing around like they normally did. The eyeballs floated haphazardly in zig-zag patterns and had difficulty focusing on things. The cow-boxes listlessly ambled along while finding themselves unable to carry as much as they used to.
It seemed that his limits on walkers extended to the limits on his constructs. The numbers did not add up, though. He could effectively control 12,000 walkers, yet he could field only half that number of constructs.
That was when he noticed that the dolls far outnumbered the cow-boxes, who in turn outnumbered the eyeballs. The smaller dolls seemed to require less energy, so he could produce more of them without taxing his reserves. On the other hand, the eyeballs with their ability to fly at extended ranges appeared to need the most power. The cow-boxes were somewhere in the middle with their power draw, as they walked on the ground but needed more juice to carry their heavy loads.
That settled it: he definitely needed more generators. Yes, the Leizhu swamp still had other generators he could repair—4 large generators, 11 standard generators, and 45 more backup generators, to be precise. He could significantly expand his numbers when he got these up and running. However, if he was to push ahead with his original plan of bringing the other emirates to the negotiating table through force of numbers, then he needed more generators than what he had at the moment.
And besides, he would need far more constructs to deal with the invaders. He estimated that he would be able to field anywhere between 35,000 to 50,000 constructs if he repaired the swamp pyramid. This counted all his constructs combined—walkers, dolls, eyeballs, and cow-boxes. Still, that was nowhere near enough to deal with the invaders. They not only numbered in the hundreds of thousands when they came through their portals, but they were also much more powerful than anything he had encountered so far. His constructs were like bugs going up against a tank; you could swarm all you like, but you were not going to do a lick of damage to it. As things stood, he doubted that a million—no, even ten million of his current constructs would be enough to stop the forces he had seen when he had unlocked the Desert Valley Pyramid.
This was why he needed to learn more, pursue every avenue he could to enhance his power. Tech left over by the Builders, abilities inherited from the invaders, even calling forth these shayateen to bolster his numbers—heck, he might even need to pass on whatever he knew to his potential allies. Every little bit would count, and bolstering their power could help them better deal with the invaders.
So far, his dolls were only capable of restoring and adapting the machines left over by the Builders. They were not capable of building things on their own, and Martin himself did not know a thing about how his constructs worked. The Custodian had made it easy enough for a regular schmuck like him to co
ntrol the soul-based pnevmatic technology it developed, but it was a different matter when it came to actually understanding how it worked.
And so he bumped up the desert ruins on his list of priorities, assigning 3,000 dolls and 1,000 cow-boxes to speed up construction. Like the Leizhu Swamp pyramid, the ruins might contain knowledge that could help strengthen him in one way or another.
***
It had been a week since Suhaib first arrived in Ren. He and his group had recovered enough to begin journeying once more, and they departed from the city of Five Gorges to make their way to Empress Zi Li’s seat of power, the Red City.
The man was unnaturally gifted at learning Renese, with the old trader Faadi matching his zeal for learning the local language. Yao Xiu seemed to take to Bashri far faster than her peers. The only exception was Yao Xiu’s former teacher, Lead Historian Cui Dai, who was making great progress in her lessons. That last bit frankly surprised Martin. Yao Xiu’s efforts he could understand, as she was tasked by General Shen Feng to serve as a diplomat of sorts. The teacher though, that perplexed Martin. Maybe she wanted to visit Ma’an herself, maybe accompany Yao Xiu on her journeys? Whatever the case, Martin dedicated an eyeball to help the learning process for those who wanted to learn Bashri or Renese. He wasn’t much help, though. He could speak the languages well enough, but he didn’t know squat about translating syntax or grammar. He would think in plain English, and the words would come out in either Renese or Bashri, depending on who he was talking to. This meant that he could pass along messages from one speaker to another, but it would be up to them to sort out the differences in language.
Martin sent more constructs down to the Bashri Desert while all this was going on. The road his dolls were building was originally directed toward Ma’an, but he prioritized expanding toward the ruined pyramids, which were far closer to the mountains than Ma’an. Besides, the other emirates already knew about his road-building efforts. It would not do him any good to connect Ma’an to his pyramid if he did not have the forces to stop an invasion directed at his pyramids. He doubted that the emirates would be willing to field such an invasion, as it would be insanely difficult to bring supplies into the Bashri Desert, but it was still a possibility. He would rather not make the job easier for his enemies.