Delicate blue-white bolts of energy arced and danced around the central sphere of the Enforcer, and up and down its spindly, metallic legs, intensifying with the movement of each limb. It amazed Silk that no one else saw it, or at least not anyone he’d ever asked. It was, he thought, like being able to see the soul of the machine.
The Inspector bowed.
“What have you brought me?” Silk asked.
“This Dreg,” the Inspector replied, with obvious distaste, “who has confessed to being here in the Old City last night around two hour.”
“Out for an evening stroll, were you?” Silk asked the man.
When he didn’t supply an immediate answer, the Inspector snapped, “Answer!” A pulse of energy arced down the manacles from the Enforcer, emphasizing the Inspector’s orders.
The Dreg cried out in pain, his knees wobbling. “Y-yes, sir. A walk. I was out for a walk.”
Silk chuckled. “Out looking for a little treasure, I expect.”
“No, sir! Never!”
“Do you have papers sanctioning the seeking of artifacts, Mr . . . ?”
“Calls himself Biggs,” the Inspector supplied.
“Mr. Biggs?”
“No. I mean, I’d never look for treasure, sir, not without the emperor’s permission.”
Silk set his glass aside on a table. A puff of air from the fan wafted through his hair. “I do not suppose that while you were on your evening walk, Mr. Biggs, that you saw anything out of the ordinary?”
Biggs, it turned out, was eager to talk, no doubt hoping his captors would overlook the fact he’d been prowling around the Old City. He’d seen silhouettes up against the summit doing he didn’t-know-what, but figuring they were Silk’s own men, he kept his distance.
“Then the bell rang for two hour, sir,” Biggs continued, “and I heard the blasts and felt the ground shake a little, and those men, they scattered quick as could be.”
“Did you see their faces? Hear names or anything?”
“No, sir. It was dark, and I was too far off.”
“Beyond learning the hour of the attack,” Silk told the Inspector, “this is not useful.”
Biggs glanced nervously at the Inspector.
“He is the only witness we’ve found so far, Dr. Silk.”
“Can you at least tell us how many of the men you saw?” Silk asked Biggs.
Biggs raised his hands as if to scratch his scalp, but the manacles held them down. “Five, six, or so,” he replied.
“You are sure?”
Biggs nodded eagerly, as if encouraging his captors to believe he’d been helpful.
“Enforcer,” Silk said.
The mechanical chirped and seemed to straighten to attention. It was an oddly human response.
“Enforcer,” Silk said once more, “this man in your custody, Biggs, is guilty of unsanctioned artifact hunting and possibly grave robbing.”
Biggs’ eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “But—but I’m no Ghoul, sir! I’d never—I’d never dig up the dead. I’d—”
“Then just the artifact hunting. That’s stealing from the emperor, Mr. Biggs.”
The man fell to his knees. “Please, sir, mercy! I’ll pay the emperor back. I’ll give him the things.”
Silk did not listen. Instead, he said, “Enforcer, this man admits his guilt. Render justice.”
The mechanical trundled off, dragging the crying Biggs away to a polite distance, the Inspector trailing behind. Biggs babbled and begged for mercy all the way, but Silk was as indifferent as the mechanical to the pleas of a useless, statusless Dreg.
The Enforcer halted with a puff of steam from its stack. It lifted one of its spidery legs and retracted it. Silk watched in fascination as the arcing energies concentrated around the leg. Then, without warning, the Enforcer punched its leg through Biggs’s chest, penetrating his back.
It was not out of perversity that Silk watched the Dreg’s death. No, he watched to observe the life energy that surrounded Biggs’s form, in this case, the color of rusted iron or old blood. It flickered, then faded out. He saw no separation of body and spirit, no lifting of the soul to the heavens as in the old theology the emperor had outlawed. No, he simply saw life extinguished.
Some of his more philosophical friends debated what came after death. It was difficult to conceive of a life, of a consciousness full of experience and learning, not continuing on, but Silk knew the depressing truth, courtesy of his peculiar vision. He’d watched his mother slowly expire on her deathbed, as well as the results of countless executions. Just as the gods of old were a complete fiction, so was the idea of something beyond death. There was nothing. The life energy went out like a phosphorene lamp permanently switched off. A waste.
Silk did not avert his gaze from the hapless Biggs as the Enforcer yanked its blood-smeared leg from the corpse’s torso. There was nothing to suggest Biggs’s life energy had moved on.
The Inspector gathered a couple of slaves to carry the body to a nearby cart. It would be donated to the university’s College of Mending, as were all executed criminals, no matter the wishes of the family. Let the menders figure out how to prolong life, Silk thought, since it is all we have. This one life.
It made him all the more determined to become a favorite of the emperor, to enter his inner circle and be rewarded with that rare gift of an endless life. Destroying the opposition, and finding the dragonfly device, and any other treasures the royal tombs might contain, were keys to his success.
He clasped his glass of lemonade once more in his gloved, mechanical hand and sipped. His gaze strayed to the ridge of the mount with its toothy ruins, toward the summit where the ancient castle had once stood. He would have liked to see it in all its grandeur, but if the castle and its king had not fallen, the emperor would not have arisen to greatness. Would that have been so bad? The empire’s teaching would have it that the people would have suffered privation under the rule of the despot king. They’d all be his slaves.
Perhaps not so different from the empire, after all. The important thing was his family’s position within the empire. Who knew what it would have been had the old king prevailed?
A flame of color amidst the ruins near the summit caught his eye, a flame like a figure burning in blues and greens. Silk sat up and almost spilled from his chair in excitement. The glass crushed in his hand.
“Howser!” he cried.
His manservant was at his side in an instant. “Sir?”
Silk pointed. “Do you see . . . anything up there? There’s an outcrop surrounded by scrub.”
Howser remained silent, and Silk could almost feel the big man trying to see.
“Use your spyglass, idiot!” he snapped.
Howser turned away, fumbled about, and returned with the telescoping device. He aimed it where Silk pointed.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Sorry, sir, I can’t seem to find it.”
The colorful figure of fire had died in Silk’s vision. He sighed. “It is gone.” Had he truly seen it? Something so magnificent and—and magical? In this day and age?
“Howser,” he said, “you and your men are to go hunting up there. But you will not kill, no matter what it is you find. Do you understand? Capture only.”
“Yes, sir.”
Silk sat back in his chair as Howser hurried off. Already his servants had swept away the broken shards of crystal and were pouring him a fresh glass of lemonade.
His day had just gotten very interesting, and if Howser successfully captured his quarry, it would more than make up for any damage caused by the opposition.
From a distance, Lhean had studied the craters created by the exploding powder. By the time dawn broke, lines of workers were shambling up the roadway. Far back in the procession was an object shrouded in cloth and carried in the bed of a wagon,
modified to support its impossible length and apparent great weight. Lhean did not like the metallic feel that it all but radiated. It was, no doubt, another soul-destroying mechanical creation the people of this time seemed to worship.
The whole procession came to a halt when it encountered the first crater. The humans investigated and set slaves to work to repair the road.
Lhean watched it all from his perch on an outcrop, protected from view by a boulder and thicket of scrub oak. He massaged his forearm. It was tender, the flesh almost raw beneath the membrane cloth, which was sodden with ichor. The wrist guard of his armor had blackened, died, and shed itself during the night. Soon the other segments of the armor would follow, and he’d be completely exposed to the elements and to weapons. He would be unable to regenerate new armor unless he returned to his own time, to Eletia.
He glanced toward the city. The Galadheon was out there, somewhere, but so far he’d failed to penetrate the city. It repelled him, turned him around every time. But now time was running out.
Lhean watched the Important Man beneath the canopy take his leisure while others toiled. He saw the prisoner executed by the terrible long-legged mechanical. How could the humans allow mechanicals the power? The power to take lives? They were soulless fabrications only, falsely alive. He could see it was animated with etherea, a perversion of nature. That the people of this time had learned to manipulate etherea as Mornhavon had once done was more disturbing than surprising. That this world still contained some etherea should have given him hope, but it only sickened him to see it so defiled.
The Important Man down below had some peculiarities that suggested that small parts of him were not . . . real. Like the mechanical orb with the spindly legs, the man’s not-real parts—his hand, for instance—emitted a tainted ethereal gleam.
The man’s gaze turned in Lhean’s direction. It was difficult to determine what the man saw because of the dark specs he wore, but his sudden reaction, one of surprise, told Lhean he’d been spotted.
Lhean scrambled from the outcrop into deeper cover. If there was any time he needed to eat that last piece of chocolate he’d been holding in reserve, that time was now. He could not allow himself to be seen again. So far the people who had glimpsed him thought him a phantom. He couldn’t say why, but he suspected the Important Man saw him differently.
THE WITCH HAS SPOKEN
Hard-soled shoes struck the white marble floor of the colonnaded great corridor, the sound echoing up into the vaulted heights of the ceiling where the life and greatness of the emperor was exalted in a series of fresco murals. They had been painted by the master, Adolfi Fyre, who had made the ceilings of the imperial palace his life’s work. He’d died well over a hundred years ago and a succession of artists had carried on the great endeavor, expanding into other areas of the palace. The current master was focusing on the ceiling of the ballroom.
But Webster Ezmund Silk’s goal was not the ballroom, nor did he seek to admire the art to which he’d become so accustomed over his long years. His goal, in fact, was not any of the great rooms or corridors found in the palace. At least, not those found above ground. No, he sought the dark places of the palace down below, untouched by art, beauty, or natural light.
Webster Ezmund Silk, Adherent Minister of the Interior, and personally highly favored by His Imperial Eminence the emperor, turned on his heel into a side corridor. While still lavishly ornamented and grand, the ceiling was perceptibly lower. His brisk stride unerring, he did not pause or even slow down as he perceived the rapid, uneven footfalls of someone hurrying to catch up with him. He did not have to look to know it was Paulson Gladstone, Minister of True Education in the emperor’s circle of Adherents.
“Is it true?” Gladstone gasped from a few strides behind. “Is it true the witch has spoken? The timing—it’s most irregular.”
Gladstone’s breathing was ragged as he fought to keep pace. He was a nervous man who had a habit of tugging at the cuffs of his coat as though the sleeves would roll up his arms of their own accord. Webster did not spare Gladstone a glance. He knew the man’s characteristics well, had watched him grow from a boy into an old man. He’d never borne enough favor with the emperor to receive the Gift.
Webster had. He was over a century old, but exactly how old he didn’t bother to remember. He let his secretary keep track of such tedious details. No matter his age, he would remain eternally a man in his early prime, strong, steady, his hair untouched by gray, his face unmarked by the years. At this point, his son, Ezra, looked more like his father.
Webster had married several times through the years and fathered many children. When his last wife died, he hadn’t bothered to remarry. All his children, except Ezra, had grown up, become old, and died. He’d gotten used to it, watching his children age and die. There was no need to rush into another marriage. If there was one thing he had, it was time.
Time. The word echoed in his mind. Something was out of kilter with time. He felt it like an itch he could not reach, a tingle in his nerves.
“The witch!” Gladstone whined beside him. “Has she spoken?”
Webster halted at a tall oak door, ornately carved with a dragon. A soldier in the red of the palace guard drew it open for him. Without turning to Gladstone, he answered the old man’s question.
“The Scarlet Guard has said it is so. I am going down to confirm it.”
Without another pause, he strode through the door and into the lift that, through a series of flywheels, belts, cranks, and cables would lower him to the roots of the palace. As he turned to work the brass levers that would set the machinery in motion and initiate his descent, he finally looked upon Gladstone and saw the aged man’s pallor and how unbearably fragile and careworn he appeared.
For all of Webster Ezmund Silk’s enduring youth and vigor, he thought he knew how Gladstone felt.
• • •
Far below the palace there were no crypts, no tombs cared for in perpetuity to honor kings and queens as Ezra claimed there had been in the castle of the old realm. The emperor, immortal in name and body, had no use for tombs.
When the lift juddered to a stop and Webster opened the door, the contrast to the light, airy regions above couldn’t have been more stark. Bare phosphorene bulbs were strung along the ceiling of the corridor, their glow sickly against the dark that collected at these depths. The corridor was narrow, made of stone, some of it granite bedrock that served as rough, natural walls. They glistened with seepage, and somewhere in the distance he could hear the plink of dripping water.
At this low level, the churning of great turbines spinning beneath the palace, fifteen of them, each as large as a small house, throbbed through the floor and the soles of his feet. They pulsed, the empire’s heart of power, circulating water-borne etherea throughout the palace and into the Capital. The roar of water was muffled, but everpresent and unrelenting. He did not doubt the constant throbbing, pulsing, and roaring had contributed to the witch’s insanity as much as anything else.
He was greeted by two masked members of the Scarlet Guard, soldiers he’d handpicked, whose sole duty was to guard the witch. Even though he had chosen the men himself, he could not identify them behind the scarlet masks that hid their faces wholly. The masks had the unsettling effect of making the guards inhuman in demeanor. Webster almost caught himself in a shudder.
Silently they turned and led him down the corridor, their feet grinding on gravel and bedrock. The muffled sound of their footfalls seemed to come from all directions at once. Step by step they led him toward the prison. A prison with only one cell and one inmate.
The corridor ended in an antechamber where the Scarlet Guard stood watch. There were half a dozen on duty at any one time, so four waited at attention, not acknowledging him or their two brethren who escorted him. Behind a steel door with several locks to secure it lay the cell.
One of his escorts peered throug
h the sliding peep hole, then proceeded to insert an array of keys into a series of locks, his movements almost ceremonial, rhythmic. The unlocking produced a cold musicality as tumblers rotated and internal mechanisms clicked, tripped, and sprang open. The door was several inches thick and mounted on reinforced hinges. When the unlocking was finished, it took both escorts to haul the door open.
Perhaps it was overkill, but the depth of the prison and the thickness of the door lessened the chance of any etherea present in the palace reaching the witch.
A fetid odor of damp, decay, and excrement oozed through the doorway. The cell was black within. They did not waste phosphorene on one who did not need light.
One of his escorts retrieved a taper, for they needed light, and led the way into the chamber of the witch. Webster followed next, and he was in turn followed by his second escort. The guards’ brethren shut the door behind them with a damning thud.
The taper was almost nothing in this black place. Shadow was layered upon shadow. He could see the pale grime of the witch’s naked flesh, the oily sheen of long, snarled hair that tumbled down her shoulders. The light glinted on the chains that held her upright in a spread-eagle position. But the rest of the details were lost to the dark. He knew them though, intimately, for he had overseen the creation of the cell and her imprisonment—the reinforced chains with cuffs that did not encircle her wrists, but ringed each finger with prongs that were buried into the flesh to the bone. A collar around her neck, also pronged, was attached with a taut length of chain to the ceiling, restraining her from moving her head or upper body much. Spikes had been driven through each foot and bolted to the floor.
Once in a while all the restraints were removed and she was cared for until she healed. It was not out of compassion they did this, however. They did it so she would not become inured to the pain. When she healed and they chained her once more, the pain was renewed.
The wretched creature snuffled, could shift her head just enough so that it seemed she looked right at him. Webster’s polished shoe scuffed on the edge of sawdust bedding that was thrown on the floor to absorb her waste. He should not be so disturbed for she could not see. He knew this well—he’d been the one who had burned out her eyes with a red hot poker.
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