by Gross, Dave
“You understand the importance of this mission to the Great Work,” she said. “The Cygnarans will not suffer us to remain within their territory.”
“But Numen, our numerical superiority, not to mention the power radiating from the node—”
“—are here only to allow us to complete our mission. You must be able to move the troops the instant I give the word.”
“Yes, Numen, of course. Nothing must impede the Great Work.”
“The enigma foundries will retrieve all they can, but we must be prepared to suffer losses in the likely event of another conflict. Until then, let us hope the Maiden guides my negotiations with the enemy.”
“Yes, Numen,” he bowed. “Thank you, Numen.”
As Pollux withdrew, Aurora watched him march them through the muddy streets and wondered just how the first prefect had heard of “secret orders” she had never given. Only Septimus could have initiated the lie, but surely he would not have delivered it himself. Perhaps he had sent one of the optifex to insinuate the idea into her officers’ minds—or perhaps his second, Enumerator Bogdan.
But to what end? If his motive was to undermine Aurora, why would Septimus cast away the advantage he had earned among the troops by subverting her orders?
Capturing the Cygnaran mechaniks was the most provocative action the Convergence had taken since occupying Calbeck. If Septimus’ team had rescued the reductors without taking hostages, the action would have remained beyond reproach. To take credit for the rescue, Aurora would also have to accept blame for the kidnapping.
It was an elegant trap.
With a start, Aurora realized she had already taken the bait. By not correcting First Prefect Pollux, she had allowed him to assume she had in fact given secret orders.
Only a priest as experienced as Prime Enumerator Septimus was capable of such subtlety. This time, however, he had underestimated Aurora. She saw through his scheme, even if understanding had come late.
Gripping her polynomial staff, she ran forward and leaped into the air, wings spreading. A hiss of chromed steel and brass told her that her bodyguards followed close behind.
Even in her rage, Aurora calculated the spiral path around the southeastern leg of the realignment node. She pushed the arcane displacement lever to its utmost position to eke out every ounce of speed. The clockwork angels strained to keep up.
Aurora landed on the observation deck. The instant they saw her, the guards bowed.
“Where is Prime Enumerator Septimus?” she demanded.
The nearest guard glanced upward. “He retired to his meditation chamber, Numen.”
With a shrug, Aurora folded her clockwork wings and stepped into the nearest lift, standing dead center, directly beneath the emergency hatch on the ceiling. Two of her bodyguards entered and squeezed in to either side just before the aperture hissed closed.
Aurora moved the control lever up. The cylindrical chamber rose, guided by a combination of pneumatic pressure and rack-and-pinion mechanisms. After a jolting start, the lift ascended with increasing speed until it slowed at the control room level. Aurora lifted the lever again to continue the rise to the next level and Septimus’ meditation chamber. The lift slowed again. This time she waited for the doors to hiss open.
“Stay here,” she told the guards.
Aurora walked swiftly down the plain steel corridors. The door to the prime enumerator’s meditation chamber stood between two masks of Cyriss, each as tall as one of Aurora’s bodyguards. Sensing her presence, the door emitted a soft chime. Aurora waited, yet it remained closed.
“Septimus?” she said, knowing the door’s audio conveyer would deliver the message to the room’s occupant. She waited with rising impatience. At last she snapped, “Override, Aurora, Numen of Aerogenesis.”
With a whisper, the doors opened to reveal a dark chamber. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Aurora saw the universe.
The stars performed their steady migration across the black hemisphere of the walls. The instant Aurora recognized the constellation known as the Hunter, she saw the whole familiar pattern. Astronomy had been one of the first subjects she had mastered as a young girl, instructed by the most learned priests and a constantly changing battery of tutors drawn from all reaches of western Immoren. No scholar was too good to be summoned before the human progeny of Iron Mother Directrix.
In the center of the room hovered a sphere representing the sun, its surface glowing brighter as Aurora stepped into the room. Around it orbited the planets, just high enough not to strike a visitor on the head. The Eye of the Wurm floated near Aurora, while Lucant hung close to the sun. Across the room, Cyriss passed across the constellations. Between them, Caen followed its celestial path while orbited by the moons Calder, Laris, and Artis.
Beneath the sun lay the prime enumerator’s seat, a concave stool surrounded by alcoves for his four mechanikal legs. It was unoccupied.
From the ceiling above Septimus’ seat hung a cluster of tubes and cables, terminating in a small panel on which rested the communication apparatus. With its single black key, Aurora knew, the prime enumerator could send and receive coded messages to the iron mother.
That such a privilege was forbidden to Directrix’s own daughter still pricked Aurora’s pride. Hating the sight of it, Aurora turned away from the device.
A clockwork vessel stood to one side of the chamber, unlighted and unmoving. For a second, Aurora wondered whether it was a ruse, the prime enumerator himself pretending to be his own spare body in a pathetic effort to avoid a confrontation. But no, such a trick would require that he conceal his other body somewhere else. Besides, it was absurd to think of influential priest employing such a childish trick.
Aurora crept closer to the clockwork priest’s vessel, its head bowed in prayer toward the stars depicted on the wall. Its multiple human-shaped arms appeared deceptively gentle. If they were anything like the arms of the enigma foundry on which Septimus’ vessel was based, she knew they could crush steel as easily as remove an essence chamber.
Aurora reminded herself that it was the mind, not the body, that endangered her. She leaned closer to look for any sign of activation. She couldn’t see the essence chamber.
As she reached around to feel for it, the door hissed open behind her. She turned to see an enumerator standing in the doorway, battle helm secured, tuning rod in hand.
“Numen,” said a hollow voice from within the helm. The priest set aside his weapon and removed the helm. It was Bogdan. “What brings you to the prime enumerator’s sanctum?”
“I might well ask you the same question, Enumerator.”
“I came to report on the progress of the calibration.”
“Then you may report it to me.”
“The initial survey of the geomantic flow is complete. The project lead reports a twelve percent deviation from the previous maps. She has ordered the gross adjustments but requires the assistance of additional optifex directives to complete the task before nightfall.”
“See that she receives them.”
Bogdan bowed. “Yes, Numen. Nothing must impede the Great Work.”
Aurora pitied Bogdan. He had risen above the rank of optifex by proving himself both in the bureaucracy and upon the battlefield in clandestine actions against the Circle Orboros, yet his rise had halted against some invisible ceiling in his progress. Denied a clockwork body, he could not expect to rise to higher rank.
Aurora knew something of the frustration that weighed upon him. Perhaps his hopes for transference had driven him to ingratiating himself with one who could influence the fluxion directorate evaluating his worth, someone like the prime enumerator. “What do you know of this rumor that it was I who ordered the rescue action this morning?”
Bogdan’s eyes widened, but he nodded as if expecting the question to come eventually. He was one of the few who knew Septimus had commandeered the forces responsible for the mission. “I only just heard it myself, Numen, from one of the optifex above.”
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“And you were present when I discovered Septimus had been insubordinate.”
Bogdan cast his gaze to the floor. “Yes, Numen.”
“So you knew it was a lie. Why would Septimus permit such a falsehood to spread?”
“I dare not speculate.”
“Did you correct the mistaken belief among the optifex?”
“It seemed best not to exacerbate the misunderstanding or to intrude myself into whatever… ah, confusion, may have occurred.”
“How circumspect of you, Enumerator.”
“I have no wish to interfere in matters between my superiors.”
Aurora thought for a moment and swept out of the medication chamber. Bogdan bobbled his helm for a moment before retreating into the corridor to allow her to pass.
She returned to the lift. Her guards had scarcely joined her before she raised the lift lever again.
The lift carried them to the pinnacle of the nexus tower. Here the corridor was a narrow passage between the enormous gears of the astronometric reconfiguration actuator. They would remain still until the node was prepared to serve its ultimate purpose.
She walked to a ladder at one of the four corners, but she did not climb its rungs. Folding her wings as close as possible, Aurora activated her arcane displacement field and rose to the tower roof. There, the teeth of a motionless rotor gave the impression of crenellations on a high battlement. Sabina stood near the tower’s edge, beside a tripod-mounted spyglass.
Aurora moved to stand beside her.
“Numen.” Sabina bowed her head.
Aurora responded with a curt nod. In light of more recent concerns about the loyalty of her priests, Aurora had all but forgiven her lieutenant’s relatively minor transgression. Together they looked down from a new vantage.
The Cygnar forces now surrounded Calbeck except where the Dragon’s Tongue River wound to the north. Nemo had withdrawn his tents farther south, maintaining the trenches his infantry had dug upon arrival.
Aurora noted with some satisfaction that they had withdrawn the mechaniks’ tent to a more remote site, between a small pond and a sparse stand of trees. Even if she had not assigned her winged scouts to identify the correct tent, she would have recognized it by its heightened guard.
In addition to hundreds of fresh infantry and cavalry, the Cygnarans now had more war machines. Besides the Thunderhead, Lancers, and Fireflies the Convergence had already faced, Aurora saw a pair of massive blade-wielding warjacks the Cygnarans called “Stormclads.”
“Numen.” Sabina offered her the spyglass, already pointed toward the eastern woods. Through the naked branches, Aurora saw another warcaster leading a pair of Fireflies. A pair of arcanists followed in a cart hauling covered cargo. Aurora did not need to see the contents to know that it was an artillery device its operators used to call down lightning from an artificial storm. Most of her forces were not immune to the effects of these electrical attacks, so Aurora made a mental note to reserve her Modulator for these self-proclaimed “stormsmiths.”
Perhaps two hundred long gunners and trenchers had already dug in to cover the arcanists on the eastern flank. A similar number had secured the western woods, where Sabina reported sighting another group of stormsmiths, but no additional warcasters.
“How many scouts?” Aurora asked.
“It’s difficult to say,” Sabina said. “Comparing notes with Pollux, I estimate somewhere between a dozen and three dozen rangers. It’s hard to know whether each sighting involves a different scout. They are quite elusive, even when spotted from above.”
Aurora nodded, her eyes locked on the Cygnar base camp. There she saw a pair of stormsmiths carefully drive a large, long-legged machine around the tents.
The Storm Strider resembled one of her vectors in some ways, especially in the crustacean motion of its four legs. Even from a distance, Aurora noted how its limbs strained under the mass of its enormous spherical weapon. If it had benefited from a displacement field to reduce its weight, the machine might have glided as effortlessly across the field as one of vectors. Unlike Convergence constructs, the Storm Strider carried a pair of occupants, one of them gripping a steering apparatus while the other clung to the rail of a catwalk encircling its voltaic globe.
When it reached the nearest side, the smiths directed the Strider to crouch before lowering a ladder and descending from the observation deck.
Sebastian Nemo emerged from a nearby tent, followed by his apprentice. Together they ascended the battle engine. The apprentice took the controls. The Strider lurched forward, obliging Nemo to grab the railing.
As he turned his head to shout at the driver, Aurora could barely suppress a smile. “I know just how he must feel.”
“Numen!” Sabina protested. “Won’t you reconsider this business? The only reason he would insist on bringing his Storm Strider is—”
“I know, I know,” said Aurora. “You fear he will assassinate me. But you forget the hostages.”
“Actually, Numen, I was about to say he wants to provoke us into revealing more of our own machines. Remember, he has used our technology to improve his own before.”
“You’re right,” said Aurora with a sigh. “But we must meet him on equal footing, as much to demonstrate our strength as to counter any treachery—not that I expect any. Nemo will learn little enough from observing the Transfinite Emergence Projector. He has already spied it from a distance, and he won’t see it in action unless…”
“Numen?”
“Unless we fail,” said Aurora. “And then he will see the capability of every one of our war machines.”
THE FIFTH HARMONIC
The goddess of perfection will inhabit the vessel thereof.
Nemo
Finch guided the Storm Strider over the center trenches while Nemo peered across the battlefield. The enemy warcaster and a single guardian approached the neutral line, but not on a vehicle. The winged warriors glided forward, their impatient progress confirming Nemo’s hypothesis that their wings were superfluous to their ability to fly.
They had not come alone.
The Convergence machine resembled nothing so much as a watch tower built upon the carapace of a titanic crab. Composed of the same peculiar alloy as the enemy warjacks—or rather, “vectors,” Nemo reminded himself—the battle engine crawled forward on two parallel rows of many-jointed legs. They moved in the synchronized manner of a centipede, giving the tower the appearance of gliding across the battlefield.
He thought it curious that the Convergence commander had agreed to his outrageous demand that he meet her atop his Storm Strider, but perhaps the spectacle amused her. He had offered the condition expecting her to reply with a counter-offer, yet she had simply accepted it. Perhaps she’d had the same thought he had: if the negotiations failed, having the Storm Strider on hand would make the swift destruction of her enemy that much easier.
Nemo welcomed the opportunity to view the Convergence construct at closer range.
The Storm Strider lurched slightly as Finch over-reached to cross a crater left by one of the artillery vectors.
“Sorry, sir.”
“Steady on, Finch. You’ve nothing to fear.” Although she had never operated one before, Finch had picked up the Storm Strider’s controls with impressive alacrity. While it was not his custom to let it show, Nemo was perpetually impressed with his storm chaser.
“Right you are, sir. The two of us alone facing this warcaster and her lieutenant and a war machine of unknown capabilities. What could possibly go wrong for us?”
“Try to be less amusing when we enter negotiations.”
“Yes, sir. Caitlin H. Finch. The ‘H’ is for ‘Humorless.’”
Finch had become more inclined to whimsy since the recent clashes between Khadoran and Cryx forces. He had seen such gallows humor before, and he had to admit that a little levity was sometimes better than the fatalism that afflicted some veteran officers. Even so, he worried that the appearance of the “Jimmi
es” might have incited a deeper streak of idiosyncrasy than he desired in his adjutant. “Silence will be your most welcome contribution to the exchange.”
“Shall I at least make an intimidating face?”
“Finch…”
“Understood, sir.”
As the Convergence machine drew near, the last traces of caprice drained from Finch’s face.
As their winged foes hovered near the construct, Nemo noted once again how the enemy warcaster and her bodyguard differed. Apart from standing a foot taller, the guardian was obviously a construct. The eyes of her too-perfect face glowed with the same radiance projected by the vectors and other clockwork soldiers. Her mechanikal nature was evident at every joint, especially the abdomen, where a complex central axis joined the pelvic unit. Nemo suspected the juncture allowed a wider range of motion than a human body, and certainly much greater power.
Of more concern were the razor-sharp blades upon her forearms, similar in shape to the brass wings spreading from between her shoulder blades. Perhaps they were ornamental. At best they could provide only a slight advantage in guidance, but more likely they were weapons or an unorthodox extension of her armor.
Despite the confounding design of the clockwork angel, it was her mistress whose appearance arrested Nemo’s attention.
Even before they drew close, Nemo felt the warcaster’s extension of her thoughts across the battlefield. He fancied a pair of great, invisible wings stretching out behind her clockwork ones, long feathers dipping down to touch each of the vectors on the streets of Calbeck behind her. For a fleeting moment, the woman reminded Nemo of Victoria Haley—perhaps because of her proud bearing, but beyond that he couldn’t explain why. He felt an ineffable familiarity about her presence.
He sensed that the Convergence leader’s connection to the vectors differed from that of other warcasters he had encountered. Her touch seemed both lighter and purer. He wondered whether that was because of the nature of the vectors or because of the warcaster. Perhaps, like Haley, she was a prodigy—or an anomaly.