The Machine God (The Drifting Isle Chronicles)

by MeiLin Miranda

  "I told you, I cannot. Alleine is unpredictable. They would cause more trouble than stop it."

  "They haven't found him. Idiot unfeathered 'uns don't search at night."

  "We cannot see at night, smug bird. I must find him first." Adewole had planned to sleep a little, but the uncomfortable flight had cleared his head; he couldn't afford to wait. As soon as he warmed up, he must move. He swallowed more tea and made a face as he re-capped the vacuum bottle; unwillingly, he admitted the stuff had revived him a bit as well as warmed him through, but it would never replace coffee. He needed reviving. His wounds ached, and weakness weighted down his limbs; he'd been in bed too long.

  Adewole staggered to his feet. "Ofira, my dear, do you think you might recruit some of your fellows to find Deviatka?" he said. "I suspect he is on this end of the island, not far from here but hidden. Owl eyes might find him when human eyes cannot. You are a highly respected member of the parliament of owls. If anyone could organize such a search, it is you, Volekiller Daughter of Mouseterror."

  She puffed out her feathers and clacked her beak several times. "That'ud be flattery do it be not so, learnèd 'un. It'll take time to gather up my kin." With that she waddled past the grate and leaped into graceful, grateful, silent flight.

  In the meantime, Adewole considered he might as well start a sweep of the area around the Ossuary. Odds were against Deviatka being nearby, but one never knew. He picked up the lantern in one hand and the small coilgun in the other.

  A muffled song came from deep inside the Ossuary, the words in the dead language of Cherholtz, the voice cracked, barely in tune and artificially loud. Without doubt, it was Karl Deviatka. A twanging accompanied him, the deep notes vibrating Adewole's bones, the high ones raising goosebumps on his skin. "He has to know this is the first place I'd look--he must believe I am dead or he would not be here," Adewole said to himself. "Well, I am inside the Ossuary, so perhaps I am dead." His spirits both sank and rose; he might never leave this place. Death was a real outcome, perhaps the unavoidable one. He headed deeper into the Ossuary, alone.

  He followed the twisting corridors back to the chamber where he'd found Alleine, not expecting to find anything. The chamber was too small to re-assemble the god's body, but the closer he got the louder the music, now even more discordant. It set his teeth on edge, his jaw tightening down so hard he feared he'd crack a molar.

  Adewole squeezed through the narrow hallway into the dim chamber where he'd found Alleine. The rubble along the back had been cleared enough for a person to scramble over the top and through an unnoticed gap in the wall; he bowed to the inevitable and did so.

  He found himself in a debris-filled room. Cobwebs hung in shreds; whatever had happened in here, it had not been so long ago. Had Karl caved it in? Why? Adewole's whole body vibrated now to the sickening music. Alleine's voice now joined it, begging and crying for the singing man to stop, though the singing man could not understand her. Deviatka couldn't even understand the words to the spell. Adewole recognized it: the spell to bind spirit to metal. Deviatka had never heard them pronounced aloud. What would happen if he made a mistake? Would it end the spell? Change its intent? The outcome might be even worse.

  Adewole swung his lamp around the ruined chamber, casting about for an exit. The Lyre's vibrations knocked tiny streams of dust and pebbles through the cracks in the ceiling and walls, and he wondered how long before the precariously vaulted stone roof fell. He scrabbled around the debris, bent over at times where the pile nearly reached the ceiling, until he reached a bare patch. A rusted iron grating set into the floor had been smashed in, and the music gushed from it in an unbearable stream. He'd found Deviatka's hiding place.

  Carefully, Adewole peered into the hole. Steep stairs curved down along its walls, beyond what the lantern could illuminate. From the music's echo the stairwell led to an enormous chamber, far bigger than any he'd seen here so far, and large enough to re-assemble any god. Adewole started down, though he had no idea what to do once he made it to the bottom. He turned his lantern low; he couldn't take the chance his former friend would see him first.

  Down and down, and down, until a dull, red-tinged glow appeared below him, brighter with each step. The ugly music filled his ears, Alleine's desperate shrieks his mind. Soon the reflected light was enough, and he doused his lantern entirely. Many steps remained; he took them faster. As he came closer, any attempts at concealment were futile. Karl would see him. What should Adewole do then? Shoot him? He had the vaguest idea how to use Hildy's old coilgun; he'd never fired one before, and in spite of everything Karl had been his friend. Killing anyone was abhorrent; killing a man he'd regarded as his closest companion was worse, even though he'd been betrayed. This mission was hopeless.

  Even so, he forced himself to keep going, though his feet tried to stick to the stone beneath them. At least Alleine would know he tried, that one person in her life did not abandon her even if he could not save her. How far had he gone underground? His legs said at least a mile, but as weak as he was they might be lying.

  Adewole's destination appeared. Many ichor lamps lit up a huge chamber bright as day. The stench of ichor hung in the air: a wild ozone; the tang of coppery blood; and beneath it all a dark, alluring madness he'd never noticed before. The Vatterbroch manuscript said it took a hogshead of ichor to power the spells and the god they made. In his translation work, Adewole had actually asked Deviatka for an equivalency, though he'd never said what for; a hogshead worked out to about 140 gallons, his friend had replied. Deviatka must have guessed why he'd asked; he must have begun requisitioning it weeks ago to get enough, and no one would question what he wanted it for.

  Stretched out on the chamber's floor lay the Machine God, its odd-metal body painstakingly pieced together. The patterning on the metal had always looked like oil on water to Adewole, but now it glistened a pearlescent gray. The odd-metal pulsed and swirled, its patterns coiling like snakes. Its lower right arm was missing, and in its chest rested its glowing heart: Alleine's prison. The red mist Adewole always thought of as her soul roiled over the god's body, frenzied and panicked. At the god's head stood Deviatka, Adewole's translation and the original manuscript propped before him on a music stand. In the ichor-powered light Deviatka's pale skin shone like melted wax; sweat plastered his hair against his scalp. His voice rang cracked and raw, but he kept on singing, plucking the strings of the small Bone Lyre cradled against his left shoulder.

  Adewole had never seen the Bone Lyre except in Vatterbroch's drawings and now he wished he were blind. Pale leather stretched drum-like over a skull's cap as the resonator. Two rib bones rose from it in the familiar U shape of a lyre. An arm bone yoked the two ribs together. Sinews stretched from the resonator's base across a finger bone bridge to the yoke. Alleine's sinews, Alleine's skin, Alleine's bones. Adewole's flesh crawled.

  A pendant's black crystals jangled against the lefthand rib; it must be one of the Choir's magical Duets, he thought. He wondered who Karl had killed to get it.

  Still unseen, Adewole crept along the wall and drew the coilgun from his pocket; sweat slicked the grip, and he prayed to his mother's gods his tired and shaking hands wouldn't drop it. Closer, closer, ten yards away and Karl still had not seen him. The man's eyes closed in concentration as he chanted a repeating section of the spell.

  The boiling mist froze. Was this it? Was he too late? A long tendril rose from the Machine God's body and coiled upward. It touched his eyes, his mouth, smoothed over his tightly-curled hair like a little girl's small fingers, slid down his arms; it clasped his wrists in a phantom grip. "Ollie, you came, you came! Oh, Ollie! You came back!"

  Alleine's joyful voice snapped Deviatka's eyes open. "Well, what do you know?" he croaked. "Hello, old thing. Good to see you up and about."

  "Karl, you must stop this. She is a child, we do not understand what she may do," pleaded Adewole.

  "So you said when I killed you," said Deviatka, "but I'm not worried what it wants to do.
It will do as I say."

  Adewole staggered down the stairs, coilgun trained on his former best friend. "That worries me even more. Put down the Lyre."

  "Does Ansel know you're out? You don't look at all well," said Deviatka. "I'm glad you're not dead, truly. I just needed the papers and to get you out of the equation for a few days. It doesn't matter whether you're alive or dead now."

  "How will you control Alleine? She cannot understand you."

  "It understands this." Deviatka shook the Bone Lyre; the pendant's crystals rattled against it. "Two spells more, one to bind her to the body and one to bind her to my will. Oh, do put the coilgun down, Ollie, your hand is shaking so badly you're more likely to needle your own foot than me." He plucked the lowest string; its vibrations brought bile to the back of Adewole's throat, and heaves shook him. Deviatka began to sing in his rusty creak; the red mist retreated to the metal body on the floor, and Alleine shrieked. When he uses the Lyre it's like he's taking my bones out all over again, she'd said.

  Adewole reached the bottom. He had to shoot Deviatka, and he had to shoot to kill; he'd loaded poison rounds in the coilgun's magazine. He squinted down its barrel, but his target kept jumping in the sight. Now, now, he had to do it now--Deviatka's neck centered in the crosshairs, and he pulled the trigger. The coilgun hissed. The needle embedded itself in the Lyre not an inch from Deviatka's neck. Exhausted from his descent, Adewole sagged against the wall to gather strength, and the gun entered its mosquito-whine recharge cycle.

  Deviatka's voice tore through the air, the song and Alleine's now-incoherent crying crescendoing in concert. The red mist spun like a vortex over the god's body, until the song spell ended in a roaring cascade of sound. At once, the odd-metal body sucked in the red mist, until not a particle remained. The god's one good hand flexed; Alleine was bound to the body. She had become the Machine God once again. "Where's the other hand?" she said. Her voice emerged from the metal amplified and absurdly childish, more than dazed and less than sane.

  "What did it say?" said Deviatka. "Tell me."

  "What does it matter?" said Adewole. He closed his eyes; the escape from the hospital, the flight to Risenton, the long descent had almost done him in. "She wonders where the other hand is," he finished.

  Deviatka picked up a canteen hanging on the music stand and gulped its contents down, water spilling to wet his shirt front. "That's better," he gasped, his voice almost recovered. "I couldn't buy all the pieces. The lower right arm is holding up a building, and the Council's Chain of Office is made up of various small pieces and gears. Most of them are from the right hand. Eichel wouldn't let it go, and I couldn't push the matter without causing remark. It astonishes me how easy it all was to buy--you're right, these are desperate people. I can retrieve those missing parts at my leisure now. Put the coilgun down, Ollie, you're a terrible shot and it's too late. The Machine God has returned, and now I will return to my former life--more than my former life."

  Chapter Sixteen

  The coilgun continued its slow whine; it took forever to recharge. Hildy had said it was old. "More than your former life? What is it you want?" Adewole stalled.

  "When my father killed himself--and let's not beat around the bush any more on that one--he took everything with him. Our money, our place in the world, our respectability. No one said out loud that he'd killed himself but everyone knew, and it just isn't done, you know. I told you Henrik Blessing stole my work, and that of the other professors and students. Here's the truth--it costs me nothing after all. I owe him money, a lot of it. He paid my way through school, he bought my army commission, and he bought my father's debts--still holds them. In exchange I've been giving him not just my own research but everyone else's. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of him. I'm tired of being poor and ashamed."

  Almost charged. "And so?"

  "And so I will no longer be poor. I have the Machine God," said Deviatka, kicking the still-prone metal man. Alleine murmured something incomprehensible, a babbling just on the edge of speech. "It can do almost anything I might wish. From my studies of your manuscript here, I don't think it can kill with a thought or create something from nothing, or turn lead into gold--obviously she can alter things, but they remain essentially what they are, like the birds. At the very least I now have the most powerful technology in the world. The most powerful weapon. I can take what I want."

  "I do not think you'll be able to get her to kill, no matter what spells you throw at her," lied Adewole; the Bone Lyre's pain would make Alleine do anything. "Even Vatterbroch's death was a mistake, Karl, she does not have it in her." Charged--he sighted fast down the unsteady barrel, shot again and missed.

  "Neither do you, and yet you keep trying." Deviatka played another low, sickening chord; Adewole's trembling legs insisted they could hold him up no longer. "Besides, it doesn't have to kill. All it has to do is throw rocks. Boom," added Deviatka.

  "Eisenstadt will just evacuate people from the island's path."

  "The island won't have a path any more. The God put the island up here, the God can put the island anywhere it pleases--anywhere I please. I might move it randomly around the city for a change. Or move it to Dumastra. Or maybe to Jero. Anywhere that doesn't pay me tribute, the sky will fall."

  Adewole's strength had long left him; he slid down the wall to crouch on the last stair. "Seems…seems like a great deal of trouble, moving an island around."

  "Oh, it makes for great psychological advantage. I don't even have to be on Inselmond. I can come back down to Eisenstadt--not alone, of course--and no one will be able to touch me. The God can run things from the ground as well as here. I won't be subject to Blessing's threats any more. My family's name will be first, not last. Anything I want, I can take. Oh, by the Founder, put that down!" Deviatka crossed to the foot of the stairs and backhanded the coilgun from Adewole's weak grip. He squinted down at his gasping friend. "You don't look too well, Ollie. Stay put, eh?" He walked back to the music stand, leaving Adewole slumped against the wall. In truth, Adewole hadn't much choice; his body was giving up, all its adrenaline gone. His neck pulsed against its stitches, and his limbs felt like straw-stuffed canvas. "Perhaps I'll even have it heal you," said Deviatka. "Who knows. Do as you're told and we'll see, there's a good fellow." He thumbed through the papers on the music stand.

  The Machine God struggled to stand. "Ollie, it hurts just like it used to, I want to go back to sleep," cried Alleine. "Sleep, sleep, sleep! You promised to find a way to let me out. Make him stop!"

  "I cannot, my dear, I am ill. Very ill. I have tried. You must do it for yourself," he answered, a weary despair setting in even as he racked his brain for a way to stop Deviatka.

  "I can't, I'm too little, Ollie," said the ludicrous voice emanating from the giant metal man. "He's got the Lyre, I can't hurt him. I want to get away from him, he's already made me eat a lot of ichor and I know he's going to take me to the Black Spring!"

  "What's it saying now?" said Deviatka.

  "That she wants you to let her out." Deviatka snorted and picked up the Lyre again. "You have managed the spells so far," resumed Adewole, "but how are you going to control her? Singing spells you do not understand will get you into trouble."

  "I'm an educated man. I speak Old Rhendalian better than anyone else in the University--excepting possibly you, I'll give you that much, and you did me the courtesy of transliterating the runes into the more usual alphabet."

  "This is not Old Rhendalian, it is a variant. The pronunciations are not all the same, and you do not understand the transliteration's diacritical markings--I have not finished. It is a minor miracle you have gotten this far."

  "Don't lie to me, Ollie, it's unbecoming."

  "And the music," Adewole persisted, "how do you know you are singing the right tunes? You do not understand historical notation."

  He brandished a sheet. "I got the Duet from Poole, that translator fellow, and I bribed a Chorister to teach me the music. I tossed them both over the edge." />
  Alleine had said killing a Chorister had been Vatterbroch's undoing. Adewole blinked sweat from his eyes; he knew he ran a fever but shook from cold. He wished for the kikois he'd left near the Ossuary's gate. "What will you do now?" He said.

  "One last binding to my will, and then we'll see." Deviatka plucked higher chords on the hideous Lyre, adding his croaking voice. The music's telltale shivering sickness flickered and died; the spell was failing.

  "Have to get away again, have to get away before he gets me," Alleine muttered. "Up? Down? Up? Down? Up is bad, up made the island, up hurt people, up is bad. Down!" She raised the Machine God's one good hand, formed it into a mighty fist and punched at the floor. The chamber--the whole island--shook. Cracks appeared in the stone flooring, running up the walls. The shaking knocked Deviatka off his feet; the Bone Lyre flew from his hands, and the papers flew from the music stand.

  A second wind gained Adewole a weak but determined energy. He stumbled to his feet, but the quaking knocked him back down. "Alleine, stop," he cried, "you will bring the Ossuary down on our heads!"

  "Down, down, down," she chanted, a blow punctuating each word. The stones parted; the dent became a crater; she jumped into it and hammered at its bottom. "Down!"

  "Alleine, listen to me, you must stop, you will kill us," cried Adewole, but the din overwhelmed his voice. Each punch sent dust, pebbles and ever larger rocks raining from the ceiling.

  Down, he reflected. Was down so bad? Karl would die; he could no longer persecute Alleine then, nor threaten the world. Adewole himself would die, but in his present state he would anyway. Alleine would not die, even falling from a mile up. She would be left alone and rudderless, but judging from past experience she would simply sit down and wait for her ichor to run out, to fall asleep again. The manuscript and his translations would be destroyed as well; though Major Berger might find Alleine, he could never use her even if he found the equally indestructible Bone Lyre.