by Gross, Dave
While she appeared short compared to her towering bodyguards, the woman was a good six feet tall. The silvery armor left only her face and shoulders exposed. Her platinum-white helm concealed her hair, but her eyes were bright and blue as a welder’s flame. She grasped a peculiar staff in one brass gauntlet. The weapon bore superficial similarities to Nemo’s tempest accumulator, yet it had a more elegant design. It did not crackle with galvanic force as his weapon did when activated. Instead, he saw in its power modules the steady blue-white glow of the enigmatic Convergence energies.
Nemo felt a grudging admiration for such a fine-looking work. Nonetheless, he was certain his own weapon, which he had designed and constructed personally, was more than a match for hers.
The warcaster’s most breathtaking features were, of course, her wings. The partially exposed gears at the major joint revealed their clockwork construction, but some other invisible propulsion must have been responsible for their flight. Nemo noted the telltale sheen of a personal power field around both the warcaster’s body and her wings. He knew she must have detected the same defenses surrounding him and Finch.
As formidable as these Convergence figures appeared, Nemo wondered whether he should have delayed the parlay longer, giving himself time to consult further with the blackclad Bronwyn. What the druid had told him already was too full of vagaries and likelihoods. What he wanted were more facts, facts that he could gain only by close encounter, whether in negotiation or combat.
Finch pulled back on the Storm Strider controls, turning the battle engine forty-five degrees west as they had agreed. The enemy battle engine halted less than ten feet away, turning forty-five degrees west as well. Nemo noticed with some chagrin that their opponents remained hovering a good four feet higher than he and Finch stood. The storm chaser anticipated his desire and raised the platform to put them on equal footing.
The Convergence warcaster smiled at their adjustment, not quite enough to offer insult.
“Artificer General Nemo,” she said. “Long have I admired your work. I am Aurora, Numen of Aerogenesis. This is my lieutenant, Sabina, first prefect of my clockwork angels.”
“My adjutant, Storm Chaser Caitlin Finch,” said Nemo. “You have intruded on Cygnar territory and taken captive subjects of His Royal Majesty King Leto. Why?”
Aurora’s smile broadened. “Straight to the crux of the matter. I should have expected no less from the most eminent nescient savant of our time.”
“‘Nescient’?” said Finch.
“It means ‘ignorant,’” Nemo said.
Finch narrowed her eyes, but she remained silent.
“I assure you, the term is not a pejorative,” said Aurora, still smiling as though she knew perfectly well it would offend. “We use it in reference to those who advance human understanding of science without awareness of the Maiden’s guiding hand behind their actions. It is the greatest compliment we can offer to those outside the Convergence, because to arrive at the truth you must first escape the dark wastes of superstition, mysticism, and the treachery of petty bureaucrats who see all progress as a threat to the established order.”
Not for the first time, Nemo was glad he had refused Chaplain Geary’s entreaty to attend this summit. Still, he knew when he was being purposefully distracted.
“I ask again: Why have you captured the Cygnaran village of Calbeck?”
“Now you do surprise me, General. I thought you had come to discuss an exchange of prisoners.”
Nemo had not forgotten. Yet he had not expected the issue to lead their discussions. “Very well, let us discuss it. You have three of my mechaniks.”
“You have one of my soldiers,” said Aurora.
“And how many citizens of Calbeck do you currently hold prisoner?”
“None,” said Aurora. “We are not their captors but their liberators. As your scouts have undoubtedly already reported, we have come to free them from religious persecution.”
“Now you are insulting both my intelligence and the reports of my scouts who have located the prisons spread throughout the village.”
“Is it strange that the people should seek shelter at the approach of a hostile force?”
Nemo sighed, disappointed.
To reach their true goals, politicians often opened negotiations with hyperbolic demands, but he found them as tiresome as—well, as tiresome as politics. Since he had first glimpsed the advanced design of the Convergence vectors, Nemo had dared to hope he was dealing with someone more akin to an engineer than a politician. “I want proof that the captured mechaniks remain unharmed.”
Aurora nodded, but a fretful V formed between her dark eyebrows.
“They are unharmed, are they not?”
“Apart from a minor injury or two, yes. And my soldier?”
“We have his essence chamber.”
Aurora did not so much as blink, but Nemo saw her thoughts registering his use of the correct term for the repository of the soldier’s mind and personality. “One does not equal three,” she said. “Which of the mechaniks would you prefer returned?”
Nemo bristled at the implied threat. “Your soldiers were defeated in action. My mechaniks were kidnapped from their workshop during your unprovoked attack.”
“Your very presence here is the provocation,” said Aurora. “Still, I do not wish unnecessary conflict.” She turned and whispered to her bodyguard.
Nemo could not overhear her words over the electrical whine of the Storm Strider. By comparison, the deep throb emanating from the Convergence war machine seemed relatively quiet.
“My first prefect will return to Calbeck now,” said Aurora. “You will not take that as a sign we are breaching the truce?”
“Why does she return?”
“To relay my orders for a gesture of goodwill.”
“If this is a ruse…” Nemo considered the possibility that this Aurora was not the true leader of the Convergence; perhaps she was the lieutenant, and she would attack the moment her superior escaped the range of the Storm Strider’s weapon.
With a subtle gesture, Nemo signaled Finch to activate the lightning cannon. The enormous sphere began revolving, lightning moving from nodule to nodule. Nemo’s eyes remained on Aurora as he felt the lightning begin its dance at his back and upon the Strider’s legs beneath him.
“Numen!” The first prefect stepped before Aurora, spreading her wings to shield the woman with her body. Simultaneously, an aperture on the side of their battle engine opened, releasing a spherical object with a pneumatic fwoop! The size of a cannonball, the globe flew out to hover between the lightning cannon and Aurora.
Despite its artificial source, Sabina’s voice conveyed such sincere concern for Aurora’s safety that Nemo set aside his fleeting doubt about their identities. He signaled Finch to power down the cannon.
“Please, Numen, don’t order me to leave you here.”
“With your permission…?” Aurora looked to Nemo.
“Sir,” whispered Finch, “I don’t like the sound of that. Perhaps we should—”
“Patience, Finch.” He nodded at Aurora. “Send her.”
“Go,” Aurora said to Sabina. “Tell First Prefect Pollux it is time.”
“Numen, if they hurt you—”
“You will slay them all single-handed.” Aurora said. “I know.”
The clockwork angel leaped away, wings turning but not beating as she flew a spiral around the battle engine and soared back toward Calbeck. Nemo looked for any sign of the device that allowed her to fly, but he could not spot one. It must be internal, he thought.
“What is it you expect in return for this goodwill gesture?” Nemo asked.
“Only your attention for half an hour, or more if what I say interests you,” said Aurora. “No doubt your Morrowan counselors have already filled your head with lies about the worship of Cyriss. I wish to offer you the truth. As a man of science as well as mechanika, you are uniquely qualified to make your own judgment on the matter.�
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“You will forgive me if I consider your opinion with a skeptical mind. You have already offered me a ‘truth’ about religious persecution.”
“Forgive me that clumsy preamble,” said Aurora. “Diplomacy ill fits me. Like you, I suspect, I am more inclined toward science than oratory. Fortunately, the true worship of Cyriss comes only through critical thought and an inquisitive mind. Cyriss is an enigma only insofar as the world is one. Those who seek to comprehend the world as it exists, rather than as they wish it to be, are her purest followers.”
“Now you sound less like a diplomat and more like a druid.”
Aurora coughed. “If you think that, you know little of the Circle. At best, they are mystics and savages. At worst, they serve the Devourer Wurm and thus worship death and entropy. We are their opposites, striving to understand the mysteries of the universe rather than enslave ourselves to incomprehensible rituals.”
“Now you sound more like a priest.”
Aurora’s smile broke into an affectless chuckle. Something about the ease of her laughter reminded Nemo of those few acquaintances who had slipped past his gruff demeanor and shed their fear of him. He had encountered the effect most often with those young colleagues who reminded him of the daughter he had hardly known. It had come to him most recently in the form of Caitlin Finch.
“If sometimes I recite the words of our priests, it is because I was raised from birth among the Convergence,” said Aurora. “Most of our members join later in life, when they find themselves frustrated by the answers offered by priests and kings. When they are ready to stop searching for manufactured meaning and instead begin to seek natural truth.”
“‘The Convergence,’” said Nemo. “What is the significance of that name?”
“Other sects also worship the Maiden of Gears, but the Convergence is dedicated to the purest worship of the goddess. One day we shall unite with Cyriss and live within her wise protection. Until that day, our priests study the secret equations of the world for the clues she has left us.”
“What clues are these?” asked Nemo. “I presume you mean something more scientific than druid’s runes or the writings of the Enkheiridion.”
Aurora raised an eyebrow, apparently recognizing the bait he had laid before her for what it was. “As my prime enumerator—your Morrowan priests would call him a ‘vicar,’ I believe—stood within the rededicated temple of Cyriss, he took pains to preserve the Enkheiridion. While we do not share your devotion to Morrow and Thamar, we recognize by certain ciphers and diagrams in their writings that they are among Immoren’s most influential nescient savants. So are certain of your ascendants and scions. Ascendant Corben, for example.”
Nemo steeled himself against another wave of flattery with the implication that the Convergence considered him in a category with the gods and their most revered servants. Yet also he saw the direction of Aurora’s argument.
“Are you suggesting that Cyriss is the deity of human progress?”
“That’s a narrow but not invalid description,” she said. “Considering that you view the Maiden of Gears through a veil of misinformation and half-truths, it is actually rather astute.”
For the first time in decades, Nemo felt patronized. His hands ached as he realized he gripped his staff and the Storm Strider’s rail hard enough to whiten his knuckles. He released the rail and made an effort to hold his staff more loosely.
“Not bad for an ignorant savant,” Finch whispered beside him.
He turned on Finch, angry to be mocked from both sides until he saw her face. She raised her chin in a nod of support. Finch was not disparaging but defending him.
Nemo paused to subdue his irritation. Aurora had said she was raised among the Convergence. If she had demonstrated the talents of a warcaster early, no doubt the priests of her order had nurtured her themselves—and perhaps sheltered her from the rest of their society. The Convergence as a whole apparently remained isolated from the world. How much more isolated had Aurora been? Perhaps she had meant no offense. More likely she simply lacked the usual social graces, like a less clownish version of one of Finch’s Jimmies.
As Nemo’s irritation wrestled with a sudden pity for the Convergence warcaster, Finch’s gaze fell on something beyond the enemy battle engine. She nodded toward it. “Sir.”
Turning, Nemo saw the Convergence soldiers had formed a line of prisoners before their own ranks. Clockwork soldiers bearing shields, halberds, maces, curved blades, and stranger weapons stood behind a row of women and children. Squinting, Nemo sought some sign of Mags Jernigan among them. There she stood near the center.
“What are you doing?” said Nemo, his suspicions once more heightened. He braced himself to vent the full power of his revenge upon this winged warcaster if her soldiers executed the prisoners.
“What do you think I’m doing?” said Aurora. She raised her staff. “I’m offering my gesture of goodwill.”
Aurora
Nemo’s eyes widened as Aurora raised her polynomial staff to signal the release of the prisoners. His weathered hand relaxed its grip on his own weapon as he saw them begin to walk away from her soldiers.
In the relaxing sinews of his fingers, Aurora saw that Nemo had been poised to channel every last ounce of his power into a storm of retribution had she ordered the prisoners to be executed rather than freed. She never intended to commit such an atrocity, but she had to admit to herself that she had staged the release in a deliberately provocative manner. Thinking of the scorched ruins of her troops, she decided she had gone as far as she dared in her effort to keep her adversary off balance.
She had managed to anger, soothe, intrigue, and frighten him in a far shorter period than she had hoped possible, although she regretted her graceless argument of “religious protection.” She never thought he would accept it at face value, but she had underestimated his impatience with the give-and-take of diplomacy.
It was time to alter her tactics, at least for a short period. Nemo seemed intrigued by the little she had revealed about the Convergence, but she had hoped for a stronger reaction. There was much more she could safely tell him.
It was time, however, to let him ask before she revealed more. Until he resumed control of their conversation, Aurora decided, she would draw out the parlay. Every minute she gained was another minute closer to the success of her mission.
“I like your Storm Striders,” she said. “The mechanikal elements are a trifle crude, perhaps, but for raw power I have seldom seen its like. Is this another of your contributions to the Cygnar arsenal?”
Nemo’s attention remained on the line of women and children moving across the field. Small children held their mothers’ hands or clung to their skirts as they picked their way across the trampled ground.
Soon they reached the area where Nemo’s arcane storms had torn her troops and vectors to scrap metal and churned the dirt beneath them. A small boy stumbled over the lip of a crater left by a Cipher’s shell. He fell, slid, and clambered back to his feet with a brief smile before his mother called him back to her side and gripped his hand tight. The other women picked up the smallest children and carried them across the furrows in the earth as they approached the battle engines.
Aurora saw Sebastian Nemo’s gaze meet Margaret Jernigan’s. The burly mechanik winced and offered an apologetic grimace as she looked up at the general. In the exchange, Aurora perceived something different from the relationship between a commander and a subordinate.
That was promising.
Nemo cupped his hand and called down to her. “Tell Blackburn to send a rider with the package.”
While Nemo watched the captives walk toward the Cygnar camp, Aurora inspected his assistant.
Noticing she was under review, Caitlin Finch raised the goggles to her forehead and stared back. Her nostrils flared in defiance, but she spoiled the effect by blowing away an errant lock of sandy blonde hair. Despite the woman’s youthful demeanor, Aurora revised her estimate of the adept�
�s age slightly upward. The storm chaser only seemed so young while standing beside her aged general. She was still just a few years older than Aurora, making her high station in the Cygnaran Army—known more for its old men than its young women—all the more impressive.
Aurora recalled a rumor she had once heard from an optifex assigned to parsing intelligence reports. Apparently Sebastian Nemo showed special favor to certain female officers under his command. There had been speculation the aging warcaster harbored a weakness for young beauties, a foible that could be exploited by a Convergence agent provocateur. After witnessing the interaction between the general and his assistant, however, Aurora decided there was little likelihood of a romance between them. Their body language more resembled that between a precocious daughter and her judgmental father.
On the other hand, the weary look Nemo had cast upon Margaret Jernigan was full of possibilities. Were they former lovers? Even if they were only comrades-in-arms, Aurora’s plans for the mechanik were doubly dangerous—yet potentially twice as rewarding.
Aurora had little personal experience with familial or romantic relationships. Everything she knew about manipulating others she had learned as the bright star at the center of a small system designed to raise her as the perfect child of the iron mother.
Aurora had never known her father. By the time she was three years old, her mother had earned transference into the most advanced clockwork vessel yet designed. Years later, Aurora would recognize that fact as a proud achievement, but she could not remember receiving a gentle touch from the woman once named Viana, who took the name Directrix after transference into her first clockwork vessel. She could not even remember the color of her mother’s eyes or hair, only the emotionless chromium mask she had adopted as her face. Aurora could barely remember the scent of her mother’s skin, skin that had long since burned to ash.
Instead, Aurora’s memories were filled with an endless series of questions, demands, tests, and exhortations to strive harder, achieve more, and excel in every endeavor. Her optifex tutors had trained her in mathematics, astronomy, and mechanikal and clockwork engineering.