by Gross, Dave
By that perspective, Mags Jernigan might have represented his other half. Nemo hoped her Convergence captors were treating her more gently than he had treated the clockwork soldiers. The revelation that living souls, not mere mechanikal constructs, inhabited their bodies continued to gnaw at his belly.
Nemo and Blackburn continued on their way to the tent where they had confined the Cyriss-worshipping prisoners. Chaplain Geary stood outside, chatting with the men standing guard. “Ah, General Nemo,” he said, gesturing to the tent flap. “Shall we?”
The mechanik sat on a three-legged stool. A pair of Stormblades stood behind him, their weapons deactivated but no less intimidating. It was perhaps excessive to assign this duty to two of the elite knights, but Nemo had found the very presence of such men a useful method for softening a subject before interrogation.
“Sir!” The mechanik rose to salute. The Stormblades clamped heavy gauntlets on his shoulders and pushed him back down on the stool.
“What is the Convergence?” said Nemo.
“Sir, like I said earlier, I don’t know. I never heard the term before. I was as surprised as anyone to see the Face of Cyriss on those clockwork soldiers.”
“You had seen such soldiers before.”
“No, sir. Never.”
Nemo removed the token the guards had taken from the prisoner. It was a lozenge-shaped pewter fob, slightly smaller than an ascendant’s medallion. On its back were stamped interlocking gears. Its face bore the countenance of Cyriss, the clockwork goddess.
Nemo recognized it because he had been given a similar token a few years earlier, in the first of several attempts different branches of the cult had made to enlist him. He had even attended a meeting, which differed from the awkward social gatherings of his academic and technical colleagues only in the opening and closing invocation of the Maiden of Gears.
“That’s not what your friend told us,” said Blackburn.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Nemo restrained himself from looking at Blackburn and giving away his ploy. The other prisoner had said nothing to indicate this man was holding back information. Still, it seemed too soon for such a bluff. Rather than retreat from it, Blackburn turned to Geary. “What is the Church’s view of this cult, Chaplain?”
“We opposed the decision to permit a temple in Caspia. For all his many virtues, King Leto has been a most permissive monarch. After these shocking events, I can only imagine he will reconsider his gentle treatment of the cult… and its members.”
Nemo watched the mechanik’s face for a reaction. He was frightened, surely, but the implied threat to his cult did not seem to shake him.
“It’s all completely harmless,” said the man. “We meet for stargazing and to discuss the circuits of the moons and planets. Most of us don’t even believe that the goddess resides on the planet Cyriss.”
“What about you?” said Geary. “What do you believe?”
“I still go to church. I still live my life according to the teachings of the Enkheiridion. The society is just… I don’t know…interesting. Like a hobby.”
“What do they promise you?”
“Nothing! I mean, they teach how to live in better understanding of the world around us. Some believe the goddess will come to Caen one day, and we must be prepared to perfect ourselves for her arrival. But I really don’t know much more. I’m not even a member of the awakened.”
“What is that, some sort of inner circle?” said Geary. “These cults always entice the weak and selfish with promises of inclusion in elite groups.”
“It’s just what they call you when you’ve devoted yourself completely to Cyriss. But like I said, I still go to church—real church, the Church of Morrow—with my wife and our children.”
“What I want to know—” said Blackburn. He stopped to listen to a commotion outside.
“Stop him!” shouted a man.
The whine of storm weapons sounded outside the tent.
“Stay here,” Nemo told the guards. He and Blackburn left the tent.
Outside, the reinforced camp rang with shouts of alarm.
“Over here!” cried a man near the map tent. Storm glaives rose and ignited as a squad of Stormblades ran toward the disturbance.
“No, here he is!” Another voice shouted near the mess tent. A deep green illumination filled the structure. A moment later, the tent swelled as a sudden gust blew through it without disturbing those to either side. The canvas pulled up, tearing away from its stakes to rise like the wings of an angry giant hawk. Dust and dead grass whirled up to form an obscuring cloud.
Blackburn ignited his glaive. Nemo switched on the voltaic generators on his armor and felt the electrical field lift his hair and bristle his mustache. Behind him, Chaplain Geary lifted his mace and looked to either side.
By the time they reached the mess tent, the sudden windstorm had subsided. Stormblades came stumbling out from the tent’s interior, choking on the dust suspended in the air.
“What is it?” demanded Blackburn.
“An intruder, sir,” reported one of the men.
“Only one?” said Nemo, making no effort to disguise his disbelief.
“We aren’t sure, sir.”
“Where did he go?” said Blackburn.
The Stormblades looked around, still blinking in the dust.
“There she is!” cried a guard from the direction of Nemo’s personal tent.
She? thought Nemo. Perhaps there was more than one intruder after all.
They ran out of the dust cloud to see more Stormblades rushing toward four more galvanic halos bobbing over the crest of a tent. The auras surrounded the heads of a familiar staff and three storm rods.
Finch, thought Nemo. And her Jimmies.
As they ran out from behind the tent, Finch pointed at one of the Jimmies. The young man stopped and planted his storm rod in the ground, holding it tight as lightning danced upon its head. Finch directed the other two to spread out. Her armor was already engaged, the crest of her staff crackling with energy.
“Where?” demanded Nemo.
As if in answer to his question, a figure ran out from behind a tent. The gusting breeze followed the intruder, but it died as the figure caught sight of Nemo.
She was small, barely more than five feet tall. Her dusty black garments concealed her shape, but the eyes above the scarf concealing her face were decidedly feminine. She carried an absurdly long, wooden-bladed axe in one hand. The shaft of the weapon was a gnarled staff, its head almost dragging on the ground behind her like a ship’s rudder.
“A blackclad!” cried Chaplain Geary. “An assassin!”
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Nemo. He triggered his tempest accumulator, his own eyes squinting at the glare from its coruscating lightning.
A dark cloud appeared above the woman. She glanced up, surprise on her face. The winds whipping her black cloak were no longer of her own making. Nemo saw balled lightning form over the three points formed by the stormsmiths’ rods.
“I want her taken alive!” he bellowed over the rising gale.
The intuition of long experience told him that no lone assassin would dare attack him inside a heavily armed camp. It was suicide, and blackclads were not known for throwing away their lives. Whoever this intruder was, she wanted something other than his death.
“Down, boys!” cried Finch. The winds carried her voice away, preventing at least one of the stormcallers from hearing the command. The cloud he and his cohorts had created snapped with lightning.
The intruder crouched, almost vanishing into the folds of her heavy black skirts. Then she leaped away, nimble as a cat. An instant later, a bolt of lightning fell upon the spot she had vacated, leaving only a black mark where its white finger had touched the earth.
One lane to the left, green radiance reflected off the nearest canvas walls. A pair of tents bulged as another vortex rose up beneath them. One flew away, its contents scattering across the gras
s. The other lunged across the avenue like an angry phantom. It fell upon Finch and the nearest stormsmith, pulling them down and dragging them across the ground.
One of the other Jimmies cried out. Nemo saw his storm rod fall and caught a glimpse of the intruder pulling back the butt of her weapon as the young man fell stunned to the ground. Once more the blackclad looked toward Nemo. Even at a distance and through the swirling dust, Nemo saw the startling green of her eyes.
In an instant, she had vanished again.
“Stormblades! Escort formation on the general!” Blackburn turned to Nemo and added, “She means to kill you, sir.”
“No, she doesn’t,” insisted Nemo. “And I said I want her taken alive.”
“But, sir—”
“No excuses.”
Finch and her Jimmy clawed their way out of the windblown canvas. They looked up as another whirlwind rose among tents twenty feet farther away.
“After her,” Blackburn ordered the Stormblades. He shook his head at the ones who stood nearest. “Not you four. Remain with me to protect the general and Chaplain Geary.”
Finch and her stormsmiths also chased the whirlwind, but Nemo sensed a ruse in the swirling wind. The druid had to know how visible it was. She must have run in a different direction.
“Alive, I said,” he reminded all nearby.
Before anyone could cry out, a dark figure flew at them from the side. The Stormblades began to raise their glaives, but the woman leaped to run up their extended arms. She jumped off one man’s heavy pauldrons, somersaulting toward Nemo.
Blackburn shoved his way in front of Nemo, deactivating his glaive even as he raised it to strike with the flat. He stopped his blow as he saw the blackclad fall to the ground in a three-point landing. She bowed her head and laid her weapon on the ground.
She looked up and tugged off the scarf concealing her features. Her face was deeply freckled, in contrast to her bright emerald eyes, which Nemo now saw were flaked with gold. An errant lock revealed hair the color of a maple leaf in autumn. Her tiny face gave the impression of an adolescent girl, but when she spoke it was with the husky voice of a grown woman.
“Sebastian Nemo,” she said. “I have come to warn you about the foes you face.”
Stormblades rushed up, their hissing weapons ready to strike. Blackburn waved them back, but he remained between the girl and Nemo.
Nemo patted Blackburn on the pauldron and stepped around the man. He gestured for the woman to stand. She left her axe on the ground, but Nemo noted a long curved dagger hanging from her belt beside a variety of druidic talismans. “And to lead my soldiers in a reckless chase through our camp?”
“They would have delayed me from seeing you,” she said. “My message cannot wait.”
“What is your name?”
“Bronwyn.”
Finch and her stormsmiths ran up to witness the exchange. The ginger one picked leaves and tufts of brown grass from his hair.
“General Nemo,” said Chaplain Geary. “You mustn’t listen to a word this savage says. The Circle Orboros has sworn to wipe out all of humankind.”
“Not all of humankind. Just the rotten parts,” said Bronwyn. With a gleam in her eye, she added, “Like fat priests who live like parasites upon the labors of their fellow men.”
“You said you came with a warning,” said Nemo. “That would have been more useful before the Convergence had occupied one of our villages.”
“‘The Convergence,’” said Bronwyn. “Is that what you call them? Still, you do not know the full danger of their intentions.”
“Why would you warn us, druid?” said Geary. “Why should we believe a word uttered by a minion of the Devourer Wurm?”
Nemo wished the man would be silent, but he had no wish to shame him in front of an outsider. He looked at Bronwyn and said, “Answer the man.”
“There is an expression among the Dhunians,” she said.
“Trolls and gobbers,” scoffed Geary.
“Chaplain,” said Nemo.
Geary bowed his head and stepped back. Nemo hoped he would remain silent without further reminder.
“The Dhunian people,” said Bronwyn. “They say, ‘the foe of my foe is my friend.’”
“That’s not only a trollkin saying,” said Nemo.
“A reminder that the Dhunian people are not so different from your own.”
Not “our” own, Nemo noticed. While human, the druids had turned their backs on civilization, causing many to think of them as a breed apart. Nemo had often wondered whether that division was a conceit created by Menite priests or the druids themselves. In either event, it appeared the feeling of estrangement was mutual.
“So you have come on behalf of your Circle?” said Nemo.
“No. Most of my brothers and sisters would as soon watch you and the Cyrissists destroy each other. After you are dead, they would be content to mend the wounds you leave upon Caen.”
“But not you.”
“These Cyrissists are not like the others you may have encountered. They do not beg permission to build their temples within your cities. For centuries they have prepared their forces in secret, rarely allowing anyone a glimpse of their clockwork creations. They plan to reshape the world to suit their schemes. To do so, they will desecrate the arteries of the world.”
“You speak of ley lines?”
“You know something of the natural system of the world?” She nodded. “Wherever these Cyriss-worshippers control the ley lines, they can harness the flow of natural energies.”
“And deprive you of those same energies, yes?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “If their scheme would harm only you, why would I come to offer warning?”
She certainly made no pretense of altruism, thought Nemo. That was a mark in favor of her honesty, or else a calculated effort not to appear insincere. Still, the presence of a single druid made Nemo wonder how much the Circle truly feared the Convergence. “Our arcane forces do not depend on these geomantic energies. This enemy would seem to be a far greater threat to your people than to mine. Why does your Circle not fight against them?”
“This is not the only ley line that passes through these southern lands,” said the druid. “Many more cross the territory you claim as your own. Are you willing to allow them to plant dozens or hundreds more of these towers all across your country, knowing that each one can power and sustain an army?”
There was no need to answer the rhetorical question.
Nemo wanted to hear much more from this blackclad, especially since she claimed not to represent her Circle.
“Let us continue this conversation inside. Blackburn, have the troops restore those tents.”
“Yes, sir.” Blackburn retrieved the druid’s long axe. Bronwyn made no objection as he hefted the unwieldy weapon.
Another shout of alarm rang across the camp. Everyone looked around for its source, but Finch spotted it first. She pointed toward Calbeck, high above the ground. “Look!”
In the no man’s land between Calbeck and the camp, a lone clockwork angel flew toward them, trailing a long white banner.
“It would seem the Convergence would like to parlay,” said Chaplain Geary. “Necromancers and savages! It would be far simpler to wipe them out.”
“More simply said than done,” said Nemo. “Fortunately for you, it is my decision to make.”
“Of course, General. I meant no disrespect.”
Nemo nodded to Blackburn. “Dispatch a man under banner of truce, and see that our guest is comfortably settled. She’s not to be disturbed until I return to continue our discussion. In the meantime, I’ll prepare our terms for parlay with the Convergence, and then we’ll hear what this winged warcaster has to say.”
Aurora
Escorted by a guard of reciprocators and clockwork angels, Aurora stepped outside of the temple with Mags Jernigan. The mechanik’s artificial leg squealed with every step. By contrast, Aurora’s bodyguard moved with the bares
t whisper of metal.
With a gesture, Aurora released Jernigan into to the custody of the reciprocator prefect. “Take her to the staging area.”
“What does that mean?” said Jernigan, more fear than defiance in her voice.
“Don’t worry, Margaret,” said Aurora. “Soon it will all be over.”
In the short time they had talked, Aurora had developed a certain sympathy for this peripheral-cult Cyrissist. Between her mechanikal aptitude and keen intellect, she was a fit candidate for indoctrination to the Convergence. Aurora even liked the brief glimpses of crass humor the woman had demonstrated. If Jernigan had found the opportunity to prove herself earlier, she might already be serving in an optifex directive. More likely she would be leading one.
A clockwork angel descended from the astronometric nexus to land nearby. She approached and bowed. “Numen, First Prefect Sabina awaits your orders on the pinnacle.”
Aurora nodded. When Sabina had reported an hour earlier, Aurora had sent her away to await her pleasure. She remained irritated that her most trusted subordinate had failed to report the prime enumerator’s scheme.
Sabina was the last person Aurora would have imagined Septimus could turn against her. If he had somehow managed to influence even her personal bodyguard, then Directrix’s reach extended further than Aurora had imagined, even into the field.
As the reciprocators led Margaret Jernigan away between double ranks of shields, a squad of reductors approached, marching double-time. At their side jogged First Prefect Pollux.
“Numen!” he shouted, running toward her. The clockwork angels drew their binomial blades at his sudden rush, but he did not attack. Instead he threw himself to the ground before Aurora, kneeling with his steel head bowed low. “I just learned of your secret orders to Prime Enumerator Septimus. Forgive me, Aurora. I never should have questioned your dedication to securing the lives of our captured troops.”
Startled and confused, Aurora controlled her expression. Unlike the alloyed visages of her clockwork subordinates, her face could betray her emotions. She gestured for Pollux to rise.