The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  Byron saw in the small governess a kindred spirit. She was a person who seemed content to sublimate her own needs in the service of others. It was a choice he could relate to.

  Marya was more tentative in her engagements and more fragile in her moods, though taking into account her recent unwanted, abusive marriage, her abrupt divorce from her life, and her introduction to the queer world of the Sphinx, Byron could hardly fault her for it. To her credit, she was always grateful for his assistance in the care of her child, and she had done a fair job of not gawking at him, though Byron felt her lingering unease. When he caught her staring at him over the dinner table, Byron had suggested that perhaps it was his missing antler that was to blame for her ogling. While Marya blushed and apologized, Ann had hurried to suggest that the result was dashing enough. She said his one horn reminded her of the men who wore their hats at a tilt, an allusion that Byron liked quite well.

  Still, underneath the fresh wounds of Marya’s ordeal, Byron found every indication that she was a good person. When he informed Marya that the ship’s comforts included a small harpsichord, she was so happy that she cast her cautions aside and hugged him. He had found the moment awkward, but not unwelcome.

  Living with the Sphinx had not given him many opportunities to interact with infants—if one did not count pirate captains. Byron was finding the experience to be alternately fascinating and infuriating. At points, the child could be entertained with nothing more than a teaspoon, which she gripped and shook with all the gusto of a conductor amid his finale. But at other times, she could not be consoled by all the amusements in the world. Still, when Marya at last knew him well enough to let him hold little Olivet, Byron found the sight of the child’s awed expression and probing gaze nothing short of enthralling.

  At first, Marya had been vocally perplexed when, shortly after she climbed aboard, the State of Art cast off from Pelphia. Were they abandoning Tom so quickly? Hadn’t the captain promised to look for him? Weren’t they friends? But Edith took pains to explain her reasoning: The Old Vein threaded the walls of the Tower from base to spire and encompassed hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles; it was home to an uncertain number of murderous zealots who were difficult to distinguish from the hordes of innocent hods; and if she hoped to find one man in that maze of tunnels, she would need much, much more than the eagerness to do so. In the Tower, reunions required careful planning, more resources than they presently had at their disposal, a dash of good luck, and a great deal of patience. But Edith assured Marya, and all of them, that the search for Thomas Senlin would begin soon enough. If he could be found, she would find him.

  In addition to looking after Iren, Ann seemed to have taken on Voleta’s recovery as something of a personal challenge. She prepared soup that Voleta could not eat, herbal tea she could not drink, applied hot compresses she did not appear to feel, and was not in the least discouraged by any of it. She insisted that the girl be read to or spoken to as often as possible and spent many hours at the young lady’s bedside with a book in her hands. “We want to make sure she never feels alone,” Ann explained. “Even if she doesn’t seem to be listening, she might still hear us.”

  The idea inspired Byron to bring the ship’s music box down from the conservatory, and to play some of the songs that he had tried to teach Voleta to dance by. In the young woman’s stateroom, Byron gave a solo demonstration of the steps Voleta had once failed to absorb. He was delighted when Ann offered to join him. She proved to be a willing and capable partner. Iren observed their merriment with what Byron at first mistook for revulsion, though it turned out to be the amazon’s version of envy. After a time, Iren asked Ann to show her the steps, and she delightedly obliged. Iren struggled to manage her feet as Ann encouraged her with directions and compliments. Voleta gave no indication that she was aware of them, the music, or their lively commotion, but Ann insisted it was all for the good: They danced for the same reason that Squit ran rings about Voleta’s head—to fan the light that would lead her back from the darkness.

  Reddleman continued to give Voleta injections of the Sphinx’s glowing medium twice a day under much supervision. He took her vitals, too, and declared each time that though she did not appear to be improving, she was at least not getting any worse.

  On the fourth evening after their departure from Pelphia, the State of Art docked at Port Crestal in the ringdom of Algez. Captain and pilot were welcomed ashore by the Algezian regent, Queen Wilhelmina Cassira. She seemed on the surface to be Leonid’s opposite in all regards. Where he had been demonstrative, her demeanor was staid. Where his fashion had been extreme, hers was subdued. He was old, she young. And yet, Edith discerned quickly enough that the two rulers shared more subtle things in common. Both were cautious, both shrewd, and both happy to let their advisers say the difficult things they wished to have aired without the burden of voicing them. Queen Cassira received them at a long, ashen table of bonewood set under a flowering arbor and served them chilled mead made from the honey of the royal hives. She complimented both the Sphinx’s ship and the mark it had left on the House of Pell.

  But in addition to requesting the return of the Sphinx’s painting, Captain Winters made it clear that despite Pelphia’s weakened state, this was not the time to resume old conflicts. As she had with King Leonid, Edith alluded to the Sphinx’s desire to distribute a new technology to the ringdoms that distinguished themselves as peace-loving and cooperative. The devastated Pelphian warship and the Sphinx’s levitating flagship made the prospect of the Sphinx’s new gifts virtually irresistible to Queen Cassira. Even while they shared a meal in the noonday light, she sent an envoy to retrieve the Sphinx’s token from her private vault.

  While the captain and pilot parlayed with Algezian royalty and Byron watched the proceedings from the bridge, Ann sat upon the foot of Voleta’s bed reading a book of droning verse to an unresponsive audience. Midstanza, Iren interrupted her to ask, “Did you ever want to have children?”

  “Me?” Ann said, closing the book with her finger still in it. “I had children. I had many. Xenia was the last, and I think she finished off my appetite for any more.” Her cheeks puffed with an exasperated sigh. “Although that Olivet is the dearest little infant I’ve ever seen! I have to confess, that will always be my favorite age.”

  “But those are just the children you looked after. They weren’t really your own, were they?”

  “Why? Just because I didn’t have them? Just because they didn’t carry my physical traits or my family name? I’ve never put much stock in all that, really. Those children were as much mine as they were their mothers’, who rarely spoke to them, rarely fed them, and never nursed them when they were ill. I knew their dreams and their fears. I could recognize a change in mood from across the room. I could tell what they were thinking just from a smirk.” Ann kicked her legs as she sat, cheered by her memories. “It was a job, of course, but it was also a choice and a privilege and a passion. I adopted them all into my heart. Even Xenia.” Ann was about to reopen the book when she stopped and asked, “But what about you, dear? Did you ever want children?”

  “I did. It took me a long time to realize that I did—much longer than mattered.” She looked down at her calloused palms, seeing the full history there that would always be inscrutable to anyone else. “Sometimes you don’t know what you want until you can’t have it anymore.”

  “Oh, don’t be so grim! Come on! There’s still time for love, dear; there’s time for caring. There’s time for doting and embracing until the very end.”

  “I did tell her that I loved her,” Iren said, looking down at Voleta. “I’m glad I did.”

  “And you will have the chance to tell her again. Don’t lose faith. Now I’m sure milady would like to hear how this epic poem ends.” Ann flipped ahead to see how many pages remained of her book. She rolled her eyes at the number. “Heaven knows I’d like to hear the end of it.”

  Voleta gave a startled gasp. Her eyes snapped open, and she sat upri
ght in bed as if launched by a spring. Her expression held the alarm of one emerging from a nightmare. Before Iren or Ann could move or say a word, she shouted, “Adam!”

  Then Voleta pitched forward and spit a bullet onto the quilt.

  The Black Trail

  Old Father Hodder

  said, “Sons and daughters,

  I’m out of mortar.

  Make more bones.”

  —“The Hod on High,” traditional, Anonymous

  At one point in their miserable scramble up the dark arteries of the Tower, Senlin had entertained the hope that they would be able to sneak up on the zealot camp and assess what sort of madness they were walking into. But by the time they were nearing Mola Ambit—the spot on the map that purportedly marked Luc Marat’s present address—Finn Goll had nearly convinced them all that they had wandered off course many hours earlier and were now well and truly lost.

  And Goll’s dread was not without cause. They had passed through a simple but inscrutable fork in the ductwork. According to the map, there was only one degree of difference between the slopes of the two passages, a distinction that Senlin’s cobbled inclinometer was not accurate enough to gauge. They had just begun measuring the slopes for a third time when Tarrou had sniffed the air and announced with reasonable certainty that a chimney cat was nearby. Rather than die in deliberation, Senlin had picked the chute with the freshest breeze. No one had complained. At least, not until later.

  Finn Goll’s latent gloom was an aspect of his personality that Senlin had not noticed during their time in New Babel. Now Goll reminded Senlin of the Isaugh fishermen who had never in their life caught the right amount of fish. Either their catches were too small or too large, both of which heralded disaster. A small catch would spell the ruination of the fisherman’s livelihood and the starvation of his family. Conversely, preserving and storing an abundant catch before it rotted was arduous if not impossible. Those gloomy men of the sea appeared to prefer perennial failure to the possibility of disappointment.

  Goll was sure that the spring they’d filled their remaining waterskin with was poisoned, and the effects merely delayed. Every time they paused to drink, he’d refer to it as their hemlock tea or arsenic wine. Later, when John suggested he stop hogging the poison if he hated it so much, Goll began to remark on the insufficiency of their supply. They would all perish from thirst long before the poison had time to do its work. Whenever the bottom of their last gloamine lamp scraped against a rock, Goll would blurt out some dramatic phrase like “That’s the end, gents!” or “Now comes the night!” or “I love you, Abby,” Abigail being the name of his absent wife. Then, when the lightshade did not burst, plunging them into eternal dark, Goll would insist it was only a temporary reprieve. Disaster lay just around the corner. And unfortunately for Tom’s and John’s nerves, the ventilation system of the Tower was full of corners.

  As much as Tarrou cursed Goll whenever he made his glum remarks, his oaths did not inoculate him against the despair. Goll’s pessimism was contagious. Even Senlin, who did his best to put some hopeful twist on Goll’s miserable observations, found his confidence in his navigation eroded. Doubt began to creep in.

  Then during one of their rests, while the three climbers huddled together under their last blanket in an attempt to get a little sleep, Senlin had dreamed of Marya. In the dream, she was walking away from him up a grassy hill. An infant’s round face peeked over her shoulder. He followed after them as quickly as he could, though with every step he slid back a little down the dewy slope. He stumbled over and over until the knees of his pants were soaked through and his joints ached. But every time he fell, he was quick to rise again, heartened by the sound of Marya’s soft humming and Olivet’s bright gaze.

  Then a gust of frigid air brought Senlin back to the wan gloamine light, his sandstone pillow, and Tarrou’s elbow in his ribs. He closed his eyes again and tried for hours to find his way back to that tantalizing dream. But it was like he had leapt from a rushing train. He could not board that vision again because it had thundered on without him.

  After three days of no food, little water, and uncertain headway, they were all in such an exhausted state that when they blundered upon a troop of six armed hods at a level junction, they could hardly believe it. John embraced the nearest guard, even as the others shook their pistols at him and barked in hoddish. It was a diverse group: men and women, one of whom seemed to be in her sixties. The beard of the youngest man appeared to have only recently come in. The color of their skin was similarly varied, though they all shared the same vigilant, sober expression. As much as he loathed Marat and his practices, Senlin still appreciated the zealot’s evident belief in equality.

  In those first moments, it wasn’t clear to Senlin whether this was in fact Mola Ambit, or merely its doorstep. The guard post was just large enough to include a row of cots, six stools, a low table, and a great brass bell, which the guards rang a second after Senlin and his friends appeared. Though they had raised the alarm, the guards did not seem to believe the giddy, starved climbing party posed much of a threat to their camp. Though probably their confidence had something to do with the presence of their swords and firearms.

  The hods appeared to speak only hoddish, and so it fell to Tarrou to engage the guards. During his babbling conversation, John gestured at Senlin several times, finally uttering the phrase “Captain Thomas Mudd Senlin.” The response from the armed hods was both immediate and unfavorable. They glared at Senlin with thinly veiled hate.

  “Good news, Headmaster,” John said after another moment’s discussion. “Mola Ambit lies just ahead. They’ve agreed to take us to Marat. Though you’ll have to be bound.”

  “Splendid,” Senlin said, presenting his wrists to the young guard who came at him with a rope and a scowl.

  “I’m afraid it goes around the neck, Tom,” Tarrou said, wincing as the guard wrapped the line about Senlin’s throat.

  “Look on the bright side,” Goll said through a barely contained smile. “At least this’ll give you a chance to break it in. I hear nooses pinch at first.”

  Mola Ambit was like the main street of a town squeezed into a mineshaft. The main bore was broad and squared at the edges. This was not some dug-out burrow. No, Senlin thought for sure this was part of the original architecture. Perhaps it had once housed the hods who helped to raise the Tower.

  The tunnel that held the town elbowed this way and that, so it was difficult to discern from the outset how large it was. There was a post office, a bank, and a general store, though none of those structures were being put to their original use. Laundry hung in the post office, the bank appeared to have been converted to an armory, and the general store was full of bunkbeds, many of which were occupied. The town teemed with hods—hundreds of them, perhaps thousands—of all ages, including many children, all shaved to the scalp, all dressed in simple rags and sarongs, and all with bare necks, though the scars of their broken shackles still lingered on many. Senlin felt conspicuous with his full head of hair and the iron band rattling under his chin.

  They turned a corner in the crooked town and found themselves walking past a succession of ancient hoists. The equipment had obviously once been used to raise immense blocks, though now the struts of the rusting cranes were strung with lines and hung with curing meat. Rows of clay kilns, once used to fire the tiles that would come to fill the streets and ceilings of many ringdoms, had been converted to coops for the camp’s population of chickens.

  But there was another layer of oddness to Mola Ambit. Here and there, Senlin saw pieces of modern machinery. He recognized the style at once, and even knew the origin of some parts. The front grill of a wall-walker had been turned into a drying rack for flannels outside an outhouse, and the spidery legs of a brick nymph had been lashed together to form a pen for goats. Senlin wondered if the Sphinx would be surprised to learn that this was where so many of her machines had disappeared to. Or did she already suspect Marat’s role in her shrinking f
leet?

  Still, there was something almost quaint about it all. It was hard not to see children and the chickens and hanging laundry and not feel a little charmed by the normalcy of the scene.

  Then they entered the throne room—though they would only learn it was called that later—and Senlin wondered if anything would ever seem normal again.

  They stood with their toes at the edge of a sheer drop. In its depth and breadth, the pit before them called to mind a quarry. The floor of the hollow was almost entirely consumed by the presence of the single largest piece of machinery Senlin had ever seen. Indeed, he wondered if it wasn’t the largest that had ever been built by man.

  To his surprise, he recognized the curve of the bands that crossed its spine and ran down its broad back, recognized the vicious trident that projected from its forehead and the knife-like fringe that lined its carapace. He’d seen the shape of the engine before in the diagrams of the book Sodiq had dropped in the rainy, bloody alley. It resembled one of those creatures from the deepest valleys of the ancient ocean—a trilobite, one that was as large as a city block.

  But Marat had obviously not built some harmless replica of the extinct arthropod. No, it was unmistakably a siege engine. The black snouts of cannons protruded from embrasures between plates of armor. The perimeter of blades that edged the shell were all as sharp as scimitars, and the horns that curved back from the front of the monstrosity were honed as finely as a lance.

  The war crab appeared to be made from a grand variety of mechanical parts—some new, some tarnished, some pitted with age. Senlin recognized many of the Sphinx’s refined metals mixed in among the rusting I-beams and pig-iron scrap. The machine did not so much resemble an engine as it did an assemblage, a flotilla, a clockwork collage.

  Their armed escorts barked at them, indicating the ladder that descended into the pit. For a moment, the astonishment of the three companions rendered them deaf and unresponsive. But quickly, the guards recovered their attention with a few sharp slaps, and the men were goaded down the ladder to the floor of the throne room.