by James Duvall
Syrrus waited patiently for the tirade to finish then looked to the door into the shop, where the dragon had gone. “Did Marreth help you build Geartooth?”
Caela slammed her fist down, rattling the coin tray and sending a few loose screws rolling off the side. “I don't need a mage to help me build a machine.”
“Fine, how did you make him talk?”
“Next question.”
“That's the only question that matters,” Syrrus explained, crossing her arms. She sized Caela up, wondering how long it would take before the inventor either cracked and told her what she needed to know, or simply forced her out the door. Syrrus was sure the older faryian couldn't do it on her own, but if the clockwork dragon came to help it might be a different story. All those blades...
“Why do you want to know? And so help me if you say 'research',” Caela said, patting her holstered sidearm. She leaned over the counter to look the other panther eye to eye. “This had damn well better be important for me to put up with mages on my doorstep.”
“There's a golem,” Syrrus spat. “With an army. It's already routed an entire garrison and killed a full-grown dragon. It speaks; and the lessers listen and obey. I need to know how it works. It is a monster and I need to kill it.”
All at once the fire went out in Caela's golden eyes. She shrank back, wide-eyed and pale. She worked her jaw, fumbling for words that would not come.
“Caela?” Syrrus asked, eyeing the tinker warily. The woman had clearly snapped.
When Caela spoke again her voice came in a harsh whisper.
“This!” she hissed. “This is why you do not make monsters. At the end of the day, when the lights go out, you are better off alone in the dark.”
“I didn't make these; I'm trying to stop them. Now, what can you tell me?”
“I cannot help you,” Caela answered softly, hanging her head.
“Caela...” Syrrus said, reaching for the woman's shoulder. Caela stepped back and lifted her hand to stop her.
“I can't!" she shouted. "Nothing I could tell you would possibly do you any good!”
Her anger broke. “I'm... I'm sorry,” she said softly, her tone earnest. She started away.
“You don't know that,” Syrrus protested, following. “I have-” she lowered her voice. “I have magic! When monsters come, I have the strength to kill them.”
“It would not help," Caela said evenly. "Some things are better left forgotten and there are things even magic cannot undo. Leave well enough alone, mage. For Marreth's sake you can stay in my guest room tonight, but in the morning I want you back on the train. I am sorry. I cannot help you more than that.”
***
In the middle of the night the soft whir of spinning gears stirred Syrrus from her sleep. At first she thought it had simply been one of the many chimes of Caela's clocks, but the clicking of Geartooth's claws was a very distinct sound and she jumped awake. She sat up quickly, tugging sheets up around her bare shoulders.
The furnace in the dragon's chest warmed the room. Unnatural light painted the walls a soft amber, leaking from Geartooth's joints. The dragon sat at the foot of the bed. It watched her with an attentiveness that spoke of a presence beyond the simple nature of a machine. Whatever sort of creature this was, it was not the same as the mechanical nightingale mindlessly singing to approaching customers.
“Geartooth? What are you doing in here?” Syrrus asked. She sprawled out on the bed to get a better look at her clockwork visitor.
“I have come to help you,” the brass dragon said plainly. His voice was forever calm and quiet, as though he was whispering to her from a faraway place. “Caela will never speak of her sin. It is the way of this place.”
“She is your master; why come to me?” Syrrus asked.
“I have my own sins to atone for,” he said, tilting his head as though a new idea had come to him. “And she is not my master.”
“How can that be?” Syrrus asked quietly. In the faint light the dragon's face seemed sad, almost melancholy, as it looked up at her with those dull ruby eyes. It had to be a trick of the light, the way the shadows fell across the sinister metal contours of his face. His expression was as fixed in brass as a statue carved into stone and the day would show it to be so. She felt foolish, talking with a machine. There was a saying back home about the folly of those that tried to talk to golems, arguing with stone. This seemed like one of those situations. Then it did something she did not expect. It asked a question.
“That a machine could sin?”
“Yes...” Syrrus said, breathless.
“I have regrets,” he explained, “of my erstwhile life, squandered. So many transgressions. My judgment is this body of gears and blades.”
Wings unfolded to the sharp song of metal on metal.
Syrrus blinked, trying to shake the fog of sleep from her head only to find she was wide awake. “You... you can't be...”
He raised a claw and held it up before his eyes, turning it over and curling and uncurling the sharp metal digits before putting it back down. “I suffer as you do. I yearn as you do. I sin as you do. But I do not breathe as you do, nor do I perish. This is my curse. I live, forever bound to this metal form.”
Syrrus felt her stomachs churn. “You're alive...”
Geartooth nodded his head rigidly. “A gear turns within my chest, carved from the ruby heart of a golem. It is there my soul resides.”
The horror of Geartooth was not his death, but his life. He was as a ghost, faintly inhabiting a body of brass and gears.
“How could something like this happen?” she asked, her horrified voice barely a whisper.
The clockwork dragon simply shook his head and turned away. When he was gone Syrrus found she could not sleep. His fate weighed heavy on her thoughts.
Not long after her visitor had left, a distant weeping stirred Syrrus from her bed. She followed it into the hall and peeked into the tinker's workshop. Caela was there, sprawled on the floor by the fire. She clung to Geartooth and sobbed desperately into his cold brass shoulder.
Quietly, Syrrus withdrew to her room, knowing that Caela was right; magic could not undo her demons.
Chapter 31
Geartooth
Patros, Calderr
Many of Calderr's technological marvels show some attempt to recreate modern conveniences afforded by magic such as running water and heated water tanks. It is unfortunate that the kingdom has shut its gates to magic. Surely great things could be done if our artificers and their inventors were to conspire together.
~The Travelogue of Alirus Beldin, Adviser to King Tygus the Second.
There had been a moment when Syrrus considered leaving quietly before sunrise but Patros had certain amenities that only the wealthiest of houses in Arcamyn could boast. A hot shower was not something to be missed, even if it would almost certainly alert her host that she had woken up. Her legs felt strong again today, though some muscles were still sore from her bone-rattling impact with the Shell.
Syrrus expected a cold shoulder from Caela, but found her host in good spirits, humming softly to herself as she tended to a skillet of sizzling bacon and eggs.
“Breakfast is almost ready,” Caela said, flipping the eggs.
The table was offset from the kitchen in a quiet alcove with bay windows. Syrrus pushed aside one of the chairs for human guests and sat where it had been. From this side of the house the windows afforded an early morning view of Baker Street. It was raining softly today, the rhythm on the glass a gentle reminder of home. When the business of the golems was resolved she intended to go home for a while, maybe spend a few weeks wandering the halls of Fangor University and the old, familiar restaurants of Andrlossen's student district.
Caela slid a plate in front of her and sat across from her in what seemed to be her usual position. The faryian woman jabbed her fork into her eggs and ate hungrily, not waiting for Syrrus to start.
“Is it strange for you, living here?” Syrrus asked, pro
dding at her plate.
Caela shrugged. “Born here. Only been to Fendiss a handful of times. That was much stranger. Here I'm the only faryian in three city blocks. People know my name and it's good for business.”
For a moment Caela's expression tugged into a small grin as she looked out the window. “I am the Lioness of Sprocket Lane.”
“Things are going well then?”
Caela frowned. “They'll get better. My standing with the guild is in question after they learned about Geartooth's heartstone.”
The inventor looked up over her plate of eggs as though trying to gauge her guest's reaction.
Syrrus chewed her bit of bacon slowly, biding time.
“I know he visited you last night. He said as much. Told you about the heartstone?”
Syrrus confirmed it with a nod, then dug into her eggs again. “That caused problems with the guild?”
Caela laughed. “More than a few. I've been on probation for two years. They hardly ever send work my way these days. I've been thinking if I could come up with just the right project...”
“Trying to earn your way back into their good graces?”
Caela's mirth faded with a tired sigh. She didn't seem to think she could, but perhaps had begun to make peace with it.
“I know a few things about that,” Syrrus admitted. “I charged off from school with a few semesters left to go to find my way in the War of Ashes. They weren't thrilled when I showed up afterward and tried to pick up where I left off.”
“Oh? What did you do?”
“I picked up where I left off. The school wouldn't take my tuition payment but they couldn't keep me out of the libraries and a few of the professors – the ones that came back from the war with me – were sympathetic. I got through it.”
Caela looked out the window again, the paving stones were slick and black from the rain by then.
“Unfortunately they've not seen fit to let me visit the guild hall. It's just up the road a little ways. I walk by it all the time.”
Syrrus swished her glass of water, watching the ice spin. How marvelous it was that Caela could keep ice in her house without the use of magic. Normally such a thing would have to be summoned. Not a hard trick for Syrrus, but the novelty was not lost on her. “Maybe tell them you're some other faryian inventor?”
This got another soft chuckle from the weary inventor.
“Would you like to see the workshop?” Caela offered.
At the moment Syrrus was eager to do just about anything to justify not getting back on the train and smashing into the Shell like a drunkard tilting at windmills.
“Yes, definitely.”
After breakfast Caela ushered Syrrus into the back room. Geartooth slept quietly on an oil-stained pillow by the door, the only sign of life a soft whirring of gears beneath his brass armor plates. The little metal dragon stirred, its metal eyes opening to thin glowing slits. They closed again a moment later.
“Need wound?” Caela asked.
Geartooth shook his head, then rested it on his paws like a drowsy cat in a sunbeam. “Did that yesterday.”
Clean and cluttered at the same time, the workshop was an exercise in organized chaos. Nearly every available space was filled with bins of parts. Two big drums of machine oil sat near the back door, too heavy for Syrrus to even dream of lifting. The main work area was filled by two long workbenches, both of which presently contained several projects currently underway. Two bore a striking resemblance to Geartooth, although the design seemed distinctively simplified.
“What do those do?” Syrrus asked, stopping in front of one of the brass dragons.
Caela lowered her goggles and snatched a jug from a high shelf. Her tail tip swished in anticipation as she filled the dragon's tank, the golden ring beneath her tail tuft glinting in the dim workshop light. She pushed the goggles back up onto her forehead when she was done and withdrew a few paces before turning to watch.
“Stand back,” she warned, then triggered the device. The mechanical dragon unfolded its brassy wings. It's jaws opened in a startlingly smooth motion that seemed almost lifelike, then it blasted out a long, steady jet of flame.
The heat was enough to make both women withdraw another few paces. Caela was grinning ear-to-ear when the flame finally died away.
“What is that?” Syrrus asked, blinking away the sunspots in her eyes.
“This,” Caela said, patting the brass dragon's flank, “is what's going to get me back in good graces with the guild. It's perfectly calibrated even after nine months. It's for glass-blowing.”
“Nine months is good...?”
“Nine months is incredible! Calderrian glass-blowers maintain very strict temperature controls. That's the difference between glass that shatters the first time there's a bit of ice in the rain and glass that's solid and strong after two hundred years. It's exactly the kind of project I can use to show the guild I know what I'm doing and I can do it without collaborating with a mage.”
Syrrus crossed her arms and tried not to look offended but Caela didn't seem to notice. She continued the tour with enthusiasm, bringing Syrrus to the next dragon which she did not demonstrate but promised it was equally as well-tuned for maintain glass-blowing forge temperatures.
“It allows the temperature to cool gradually over about a day,” Caela explained. She lifted a set of gears from the table and pointed out several features which were lost on Syrrus but Caela promised they allowed the flame to be reduced slowly and evenly over a long period of time.
“This spring controls the decay rate,” Caela said, identifying a coil spring attached to an adjustable key. “I have a customer lined up. Once he's made a few quality pieces with it he's agreed to let a few of the guild officers inspect it.”
“Hopefully that will work,” Syrrus said, distracted by a distinctively empty space at the end of the row. A blanket, stained equally with both oil and grease, covered the floor there. Caela's expression sank when she saw it.
“That's where...” she said, looking to the front of the workshop where Geartooth lay idle.
“Geartooth's soul?”
Caela shuddered. She nodded at the window over the spot. “A thief came in through that window. Geartooth was a golem at that point. They can be brutally efficient. I came when I heard the screaming. I found Geartooth standing here over a body. He was screaming...”
“The thief?”
Caela closed her eyes and shook her head. “Geartooth. The thief was dead for all intents and purposes.”
“Dead does not exactly describe it,” Geartooth chimed in. “I am not dead.”
This did not help settle the inventor's nerves. She stepped around the blanketed area and left it behind her.
“This information is... personal and private,” she said. “If word were to get back to the guild, I would probably be executed and Geartooth destroyed. Do you understand, Syrrus?”
Syrrus nodded solemnly. Geartooth had returned to his idle state, gears softly whirring in the silence. The golems she had discovered at the underground foundry almost certainly had been created in similar fashion, heartstones imbued with the souls of murdered men. While Geartooth was clearly a crafty soul, the creatures that had brought death to Fort Lockworth were not the kind that sought redemption in the unnatural extension of their mortal life.
Chapter 32
Sowing the Wind
Camden, Arcamyn
There came a time in the age of wind and fire that the prophet Khalen Morduul was sent out from the city of his fathers to answer the Forgemaster's Call. He was bidden by the Flame that he might go into Arcamyn, the land of his forefathers and say to them that they must repent and also give sacrifices unto Kalthiress, for a great fire would soon come and the wicked and the heretics would be burned away as the blacksmith does smelt his iron.
And when he came into the land of iniquity he spake these things unto them that would hear, but their ears would not listen, nor would they receive him unto their houses for
they were heretics and held fast to a false teaching.
Four signs came unto the city, in the form of the four sorrows. Pestilence, Plague, Drought, and Famine. Each came in turn, and with the passing of each Khalen Morduul spoke again to the masses, urging that they repent, but still they would not.
In their wickedness they proclaimed the prophet an agent of the dark and fed to him a bitter potion that should inflict great sorrows on him, the prophet of the lord. This they gave to him and bade him drink, and he did, and his throat was sorely burned and his voice did rasp from the touch of fire. Still the sorrows were not ended.
And they anointed themselves with ash and dressed in sackcloth and came to where their king had imprisoned Khalen Morduul, and they said to him that he should end the sorrows visited upon them. He spake to them saying to go forth to the Rilrath River, that they might wash themselves in its holy waters, and then give offering to Kalthiress on the banks and praise him for they, like iron, are reforged by these hardships and made new. But they did not, and cut his eyes from his head.
Lo, through all these things the people repented not, and their king laid claim on Khalen Morduul's life, saying that he should end the sorrows. In all of this, Khalen Morduul's faith stood unshaken and the heretic king did reach out and slew him upon the banks of the Rilrath River.
~The Seven Sorrows of Khalen Morduul
Khaebus Mulgim was last in the small procession scaling St. Penathor's ivory tower. King Isaac was none too happy about the sudden appearance of a dragon in his city and had been voicing his feelings on the matter since Draggus had led him and Charles Tamlin into the cathedral to view the prisoner. Khaebus felt a sickness in his stomach, exacerbated by the long climb. He knew what Draggus intended once they reached the observatory. He worried that the Arcamynians might realize. If they did, he would surely be the first to die. Maybe they would kill Draggus first. The warlock was stronger and Khaebus was nearly an old man. His joints surely felt like an older man's by the time the tower door opened and admitted the party of four into the observatory.