Antiphon

Chapter 9

Charles

Charles blinked into his magnifying glass and bit his tongue as he worked the tweezers, inwardly cursing the clumsiness that age brought to his fingers.

He’d lost track of time now, these past days blurring into scattered hours of sleep here and there and meals taken hurriedly to the side of his workbench and the metal body stretched out upon it. Rudolfo occasionally stopped in to ask after Isaak, and at least once, Jin Li Tam had also snuck in, magicked scouts warbling the air around her as they shadowed her every movement. He remembered that they’d asked questions of him, faces lined with worry; but he couldn’t remember what those questions entailed now, nor could he recall the short, sharp answers he’d provided.

Initially, he thought he’d lost the mechoservitor. Now, he was convinced that the metal man would function, though he’d cannibalized the two others in order to accomplish even that much. The gears would whir. The bellows would pump. All of the mechanical parts would do their work.

But would it still be Isaak?

The fine, narrow strips of ancient paper-thin steel that comprised Isaak’s scripting scrolls had confounded him with its twisted tangle-along with what else he discovered there.

Somehow, they had fused themselves around the sunstone that powered his boiler, and it was not a new development-it appeared to be the result of past trauma, perhaps left over from the Seven Cacophonic Deaths. That made the most sense. Until now, Isaak had refused Charles-and anyone else-access to his inner workings. He performed his own maintenance, using mirrors and tools from the pouch he kept nearby at all times.

It made sense. I would trust less, too, if I’d been used in such a way.

And now, with the work just moments from being complete, Charles wondered if his metal child would be. himself. when he fired the boiler and powered the scrolls. He frowned at the thought, exploring the odd emotion that snared him. He’d spent days bent over this mechanical, his back and legs and arms aching from too long on his feet, hunched over the work. Why? He’d not spent so much time over the others. Indeed, he’d scrapped them as needed to bring back this one.

Because Isaak is. special. This machine had wept for a ravaged city and had put himself in harm’s way to save the lives of his-Charles reached for the word and found it-of his family.

He blinked again and suddenly realized his eyes were wet.

And now, if Isaak truly did still remain in that tangle of metal and wire, he would have to give him difficult news. And pass that same news to Rudolfo and the others.

The fused memory scrolls were functional, though Charles was uncertain exactly how that was possible. But the sunstone they were fused into now pulsed on borrowed time. There was no way to repair the hairline fracture Charles found there. And there was no way to replace the metal man’s heart without also replacing the memory scrolls.

Sighing, Charles fired the boiler and waited for the steam to build. When Isaak whistled and hissed, he held his breath and hit the switch.

The bellows pumped, and the amber eyes fluttered open, rolling a bit as the shutters worked. The mouth flap opened and closed and the ear flaps bent. Closing the chest cavity, Charles spun the dial on the Rufello lock he’d installed there. He’d repaired all but the limp, and he’d added nothing extra but the lock. Knowing what this mechoservitor guarded so near his broken heart had compelled him.

He watched the mechanical twitch and listened for any grinding gears or high-pitched whistles that might betray yet more work. “Are you functional?”

Isaak sat up on the table and blinked. “Mechoservitor Three is functional and ready for duty.”

Mechoservitor Three.

He felt his eyebrows furrowing. “What is your designation?”

“Designation Mechoservitor Three, Library Archives and Cataloging, Office of-” Isaak closed his mouth flap, then looked to Charles. The metal man shuddered, and he heard a grind within, followed by a popping sound. The jeweled eyes dimmed, then grew stronger. “I am Isaak, Father, but you know that.”

Charles released his held breath and wiped his eyes. “I do know that.”

Wisps of steam leaked from Isaak’s exhaust grate. “Why do you weep, Father?” He looked around the room, saw the two mechanicals disassembled upon the other tables, and turned back to Charles, waiting for an answer.

What do I say? He wasn’t sure himself. “I think I’m just glad to see you, Isaak.”

“It is also agreeable to see you.” Then, another pop, and once more the eyes dimmed and then brightened. Isaak surged to his feet. “The library,” he said, his reedy voice laced with panic. “Lady Tam and Lord Jakob-”

Charles put a hand on Isaak’s metal chest. It was still cool to the touch but warming quickly. “They are alive because of you.” He paused. “And the library is under repair.”

Isaak looked to the other two mechoservitors. “And my brothers?”

Charles shook his head. “I salvaged what I could from them to repair you. It was a difficult decision. We’ll recover what we can from their memory scrolls, but their damage was extensive.”

Isaak blinked now, and Charles saw the water leaking from the corner of his eyes. “They are permanently nonfunctional?”

Charles nodded. “Come sit with me,” he said, and motioned his metal handiwork toward the plain wooden chairs near his crowded bookcases and guttering stove.

He pulled his chair close to Isaak and put a hand on the metal man’s leg. “I have more unpleasant news, Isaak.” How do I say this? He tried to tell himself it was merely a machine, but he knew better. “Isaak,” he said, then surprised himself with his next word. “Son,” he added. And now the water returned to his own eyes, and he sat with it for a moment while the metal man waited. In the end, he came back to science, as he ever had from childhood on. “You are aware of the inner workings of mechoservitor technology and the use of sunstones as a power source for your boiler?”

Isaak nodded.

“And you are aware, I’m sure, of the unusual nature of your own scripting mechanisms?”

Long metal fingers made their way slowly to the door in his chest, found the Rufello lock and paused. Isaak cocked his head.

“I installed that to keep your secret safe. It is a complex cipher known only to the two of us,” Charles said, then brought the conversation back to the news he could not bear to deliver. “Because of the fusing, your memory scrolls are inextricably intertwined with your power source.”

Isaak nodded again. “Yes, Father. I believe it is a result of the spell.”

Charles offered a grim smile. “I concur. You were certainly not designed that way.” He sighed. “I will simply be frank with you, Isaak. Your sunstone is cracked and there is no way to know when it will break, but exertion and overheating could bring it about sooner.” He waited for the words to register. “I cannot replace it without irreparably damaging your memory scrolls.”

Isaak’s eye shutters flashed, and Charles watched another shudder take the metal man. “When it breaks I will become nonfunctional.”

Charles nodded. “And I will do everything in my power to find a way around that outcome, but as yet there is no clear path ahead of me.”

Isaak said nothing for a long while. When he spoke, Charles heard sorrow and resolve in the reedy metal voice. “I do not wish to lose who I have become.”

No, Charles realized. I do not wish it either. He opened his mouth to offer some kind of additional comfort. He closed it when Isaak stood.

“I wish to ask something of you,” Isaak said.

“Ask,” Charles answered, and suddenly the thought that this metal child of his might someday run out of questions, run out of curiosity, run out of life-it opened a chasm of sorrow in him that he couldn’t fathom.

Isaak stood. “I must get something from my room.” He looked around. “May I have a robe, Father?”

Charles pointed to where a fresh scholar’s robe hung waiting. He watched as the metal man pulled it on quickly and cinched its rope belt. Then, he waited and wondered what surprising question would come back to him.

Isaak was not gone long. When he returned, he extended a hand to Charles, and the arch-engineer reached for it. It was small but easily recognizable-a golden scripting scroll, rolled tight.

“I want to dream before I become nonfunctional,” Isaak said.

Charles looked at it, turning it over in his fingers. “How did you come by this?” He recognized it, though at the time he’d thought it merely the work of the apprentice who betrayed him into Sethbert’s hands two years ago. It had been fused into the memory scroll of the mechoservitor that he’d sent out last year in search of Petronus, the mechoservitor that had fled into the Churning Wastes. He’d read the numbers and symbols, finding nothing but the notes of an ancient love song.

“It was given to Nebios that he might give it to me. It is what my cousin called the metal dream.”

Charles felt his eyes narrowing, remembering Neb’s report on the other mechoservitor. They’d found nothing when they searched Sanctorum Lux just days after its supposed suicide-its body vanished without even a screw or bolt left behind to show it had been there. That mechoservitor had been dangerous-violent, even, damaging both Isaak and the Waste guide Renard and killing dozens of Erlund’s finest Delta Scouts during its escape and flight east. “Nebios gave this to you? You’ve kept quiet about it for some time.”

“I was. uncertain.”

Charles sighed. “I’m also uncertain, Isaak. I would prefer to wait and study it more carefully.” Perhaps run it on one of the others and- He caught himself, realizing what he did now. He didn’t want to risk losing Isaak again. And if this truly was more than a simple song, if it was some kind of coded script dressed like a dream, there was no telling what it might do. Isaak could have done this for himself. He didn’t have to ask. He had the tools and mirrors.

He came to me because he sees me as his father. Charles felt an emotion that he could not quite label.

When Isaak spoke next, his voice was a reedy whisper. “I want this, Father.”

Charles looked up and studied the amber eyes that stared back at him. Without a word, he stood and went to the worktable where Isaak had so recently lain lifeless and battered. He gestured to it, and Isaak stood and removed his robe, replacing it on the hook by the door. Then, he climbed onto the table and stretched out.

In silence, Charles spun the cipher into the lock and opened Isaak’s chest cavity. He reached around and found the spool for incoming scrollwork. Carefully, he started the thin gold strip into the threading, then tightened down the scroll on its spool.

Finally, he closed the chest cavity and spun the lock. “Isaak,” he said, “run scroll seven six three.”

He heard the spool whir, heard the clacking of the metal strip as it began to unwind. Isaak seized for a moment, his limbs going rigid and his eyes lighting brighter than Charles had seen them. Then, the eye shutters closed and fluttered, the bellows wheezed, and Isaak slept.

Perhaps it is a dream, Charles thought.

Then, he went and sat by the fire to worry and wait for his metal son to awaken.

Because, Charles realized, that’s what fathers do.

Neb

Neb used his scout knife to carve a roasted Waste rat he’d snared in the quiet hour before dawn. The crackling meat smelled sour on the morning air, but Neb’s stomach growled at it.

He glanced back at the woman deeper in the cave. She was getting stronger and stronger. She’d polished off an entire rat on her own the day before, warning him between bites of his need to flee her sisters.

He was beginning to believe her. There was an earnestness to her voice that compelled him. So he did the math and factored his best guess of their speed beneath the magicks and hoped that his sense of distance here was accurate.

He speared the hindquarters of the Waste rat and slid it onto the tin plate he’d found in her pack. He carried it back to her and hunkered down to watch her eat.

She tore into the rat, peeling back the crispy skin to find the meat beneath.

He didn’t wait for her to start this time. He brought it up himself. “I think we should leave tomorrow,” he told her.

She looked up from the meat, her face smeared with grease. Her eyebrows furrowed, bending the symbols carved into her forehead. She finished chewing and swallowing. “Tomorrow will be too late. You’ve-” She closed her eyes in concentration. “Miscalculated.”

Tomorrow. It was possible, he realized. He was not familiar enough with the blood magicks to know exactly how fast they made these women who supposedly hunted him. He’d factored them as faster than a horse, perhaps nearly as fast as a mechoservitor. He wanted to ask, but earlier questions had been deflected in her constant press for him to leave while he still could. If they really could arrive as soon as tomorrow, Neb needed to leave.

But what to do about this scarred woman? He could not leave her. His eyes fell upon her exposed leg, and when he averted them, he saw her boots and her pack. He felt the idea land between his ears like a stone in a well. “It is time for us to be frank with one another,” he said. “Where were you going when the kin-wolves waylaid you?”

She looked up but continued to chew her food, her eyes hard.

He continued. “You called me an abomination, and you told me your sisters were hunting me to get to the mechoservitors,” he said. “But what about you? You claimed to be attending other matters?”

“They are not your concern,” she said in an even voice. “Your concern is to not be caught by my sisters if you love the light.”

Her words rocked him back on his heels. “The light?”

“You want frankness, Abomination?” She gave him a hard look, then put down the tin plate. “The Whymers are not the only ones concerned with shepherding the light. My family was set to this work long before the days of P’Andro Whym. I’ve spent myself for it, even against my will at times, and stand now on the brink of failure because of a stubborn boy.”

The emotion in her voice surprised him. It was raw, nearly desperate. And the ambush of her sudden forthrightness made him suspicious. “What happens if they find the mechoservitors?”

She shook her head. “I do not know. I only know that they mustn’t, or truly the light is snuffed. And I must not be found, either, until I’ve finished my work.”

He felt the bolt slide free in this particular Rufello lock. “You are working against them,” he observed. “But who are they?”

Her words were carefully chosen and did not answer his question. “I had limited time to bear my message before this delay; my work is now jeopardized.”

Neb sat back on his haunches, propping himself against the cool glass wall of the cave. He looked at her and felt himself blush as she returned the look. There where she sat, the blankets had fallen around her, exposing her scarred shoulders and the cotton sleep shift she’d changed into that morning after bathing herself from a metal cup of water he’d heated. The memory of that intensified the heat in his cheeks as he recalled sitting at the mouth of the cave, listening to her behind him as he forced himself to watch the ruined city beyond their hiding place.

His eyes moved to her breasts without any effort on his part and he forced them away, hoping she didn’t notice. He swallowed his sudden discomfort and forced himself to look at her face. It was regal, despite the scars, and she regarded him with an air that he found familiar.

But I find everything about her familiar. It was as if he knew her or should know her. The high cheekbones, the wide mouth, the long legs. The eyes were the right shape but the wrong color, and her red hair should be long and flowing and-

Neb gasped and wondered how it was he hadn’t seen it until now. “You are a Tam,” he said.

For a moment, she looked angry. Then, her features softened. “I am the thirty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam,” she said. “I have spent my life for this brief season, and if it is to mean anything, we must not be here when my sisters arrive.”

He read earnestness in her face and voice and realized that he believed her. He’d read that Petronus, when he was young and Pope, could read a person’s character by the line of their jaw. He wished he had that skill now, and wondered what he would see. She held her head high, the jaw straight and firm.

He looked to her pack and boots again, then looked back to her. “Can you run?”

She nodded.

His decision was made quickly despite knowing it meant he would not be meeting Renard. He looked toward the mouth of the cave, his mind’s eye out in the east beyond the ruins where his friend pursued one of her sisters. He looked back to the Tam woman.

Their eyes met, and he willed strength into his, hoping it would lend power to his question. “Where are we running?”

Her nostrils flared, but she did not break eye contact. He watched her make her own choices regarding trust, her lips pursed for a moment. “The Keeper’s Gate,” she finally said, her voice low and steady. “I bear urgent word for Jin Li Tam, queen of the Ninefold Forest and Great Mother to the Child of Promise.”

Nodding, Neb started calculating exactly how much time it would take for them to pack their belongings and leave this place to the kin-wolves.

Seven minutes later, they ran west.

Rudolfo

Cold rain soaked Rudolfo despite the cloak he wore, and he tipped his head to let the water run from his hood. A chill wind found the gaps in the cloak and licked at the bits of skin it could find. He could read the weather here. Winter would come fast and harsh this year, and it made him nervous.

How do I raise an army in the dead of winter? Lysias assured him it would be fine, and his carefully drawn plans seemed to support the general’s assertion. And Rudolfo had faced Lysias’s men in the War for Windwir-of all the academy-trained officers he’d encountered, Lysias was the most formidable.

Trust, Rudolfo thought, is an exercise of the will. And he would trust this man to bring about what Lysias promised he could. By spring, the general claimed, the borders would be sixty percent controlled, eighty-five percent by the next fall. And each of the nine houses would have their own troops, supplemented by the Wandering Army as needed.

The thought of it both pleased Rudolfo and broke his heart.

A white bird, blurred by the darkness and rain, flashed past to land in his second captain’s catch net. With a low whistle, they stopped and Rudolfo looked to his right.

Isaak and Charles rode side by side. He’d seen them together before, certainly, but something had changed between them since the events at the dedication. Rudolfo had meant to ask about it but had been buried beneath a mountain of maps and meetings and strategies, the meticulous planning that went into Jin Li Tam’s upcoming diplomatic mission to the Machtvolk Territories. It had been as carefully considered as any campaign, and though his stomach knotted at the thought of it, Rudolfo knew it was the best path left to them for this time. His family would be protected-Ria’s latest kin-raven had assured him of this, sworn upon the mark of Y’Zir that guarded her heart-and the Ninefold Forest would have eyes in a place no other Named Lander was permitted to go. The army Ria had raised now held a border as far south as the Desolation of Windwir.

So now, with Jin Li Tam and Winters leaving tomorrow, Rudolfo once more could exercise his trust, turning his mind to other matters.

It was not an easy task.

He looked again to Isaak and Charles. The metal man rode high in the saddle, mounted upon the strongest horse they could find for him. Wrapped in the robe, cloak and hood, he could almost be mistaken for a man. His metal hands were gloved, and his metal feet were booted against the cold and rain. All that betrayed his true nature was the amber glow of his jeweled eyes beneath the cowl and the occasional hiss of steam as it vented through the exhaust grate in his back. Beside him, also wrapped against the rain, Charles seemed small.

Rudolfo looked to his metal friend. “They picked a forlorn and miserable night for this,” he said.

Isaak started, his gears whirring and clacking. His head swiveled, and when he spoke, his voice sounded distracted and far away. “I apologize for this inconvenience, Lord Rudolfo.”

Rudolfo chuckled. “No apology required, Isaak. It is what it is.” And what it is, is damned curious, he told himself.

The moon sparrow had returned not long after Isaak’s functionality had been restored, urging them north under cover of darkness and storm. Somehow, these metal emissaries had crossed the Keeper’s Wall to arrive in his Ninefold Forest, yet they had not passed through the gate his Gypsy Scouts now manned there. The foresters had worked out a new code and retrained a new batch of birds just for these communications, and they sat unused in their coops. “Still, I wonder what they’re up to.”

Isaak said nothing, and Rudolfo looked beyond him to Charles. The old man met his eyes for a moment, and Rudolfo read something there that he could not quite place. He knew when the arch-engineer quickly broke eye contact that something indeed was amiss. He knows something that he is not telling.

Looking back to Isaak, he opened his mouth to speak again, then closed it when Philemus spoke. “They are ahead. Four of them, robed and waiting. Scouts have secured a perimeter around them.”

Rudolfo nodded. “Very well. Hold here unless we whistle for you.”

“Aye, General,” the second captain said.

Then Rudolfo looked to Isaak. “Are you ready?”

Isaak nodded slowly but said nothing.

Rudolfo nudged his horse forward at a walk, and the two followed. The forest around them was alive with the rainfall, and a shrouded moon offered no light between the clouds and the thick evergreen canopy. They rode forward in darkness until Rudolfo saw the amber lights ahead. When he did, he slipped from his saddle and led his stallion into the small clearing.

The four stood together, side by side, and steam rose from the heat of them. They’d run far, he realized, and yet had somehow circumnavigated the only pass across the impenetrable Keeper’s Wall. Rudolfo waited until Isaak and Charles were beside him, and then he stepped forward. “Greetings,” he said, “I am Rudolfo, lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses, general of the Wandering Army.”

One of the mechoservitors broke ranks with the others and raised his hand. “Well met, Lord Rudolfo.” The metal man looked to Isaak next. “Greetings, cousin.” Then, last, he looked to Charles. “Father,” he said, inclining his head.

Charles grunted and returned the nod.

As his eyes adjusted to the night, Rudolfo saw the differences between these mechoservitors and Isaak. They were more boxlike, with harder right angles, and copper in color.

Isaak inclined his head. “Greetings, cousin.”

“Do you serve the light?” the mechoservitor asked.

Isaak nodded. “I serve the light,” he said. Then, he looked to Rudolfo. “And I serve this man and his family.”

The mechoservitor’s voice lowered. “Do you yet comprehend the dream?”

The dream? Rudolfo glanced at Charles. The old man looked away, and Rudolfo noted the question that required asking once they finished here. He would ask Isaak first, of course, out of courtesy for his friend.

Isaak’s eye shutters flashed, and his voice took on a heaviness that sounded so unlike the metal man that Rudolfo found himself blinking. “I do not comprehend it,” he said. “But I know that it requires a response.”

“Yes.”

Another mechoservitor stepped forward. “Even now the antiphon is being shaped. We are here to aid that work.”

Rudolfo was not familiar with the word and set it aside for later conversation. “Return with us to my manor,” he said, “and we will discuss this aid.”

The mechoservitor looked at him, and Rudolfo saw something in those eyes, in the way the metal man held his head, that spilled uneasiness into him like ink in a pond. “Do you serve the light?”

Rudolfo cocked his head. “I do. I am restoring what I can of it by-”

There was gravity in the mechoservitor’s tone when he interrupted. “The dream has shown us that the light cannot be truly preserved in a building of stone and wood. Your aid is not required.” He looked to Isaak. “You have tasted the dream and we have come for you, cousin. Join us.”

Rudolfo held his breath. He had not foreseen this, and judging by the look on Charles’s face, the old arch-engineer had not expected it either. They both stared at Isaak.

Isaak’s eyes flashed, bright and then dim, as his working parts clacked and whirred with this new information. “I cannot join you,” Isaak said. Rudolfo heard the sadness in his friend’s voice. “I have work to accomplish here.”

Another of the four stepped forward, repeating the other’s words. “The light cannot be truly preserved in a building of stone and wood, cousin. You of all our kind should comprehend this fully.”

Rudolfo started. They know of his role in Windwir.

A gout of steam burst from Isaak’s exhaust grate, and his metal plating rattled. “I cannot join you, but I will aid you as I can.” The metal man looked to Rudolfo, and he thought for a moment he heard pleading in his voice. “I believe Lord Rudolfo will aid you as well if you will be forthright with him.”

More trust. And Rudolfo had no reason to offer it. Yet.

The last mechoservitor joined them now. “We run for the Marshlands to search the Book of Dreaming Kings.” He looked to Rudolfo and repeated his companion’s words. “Your aid is not required.”

Rudolfo felt his frustration building and wrestled it down. “You are in my forests,” he said in a low and even tone. “You may not wish my aid, but you should still desire my grace.”

The mechoservitor’s eye shutters flashed open and closed. “We will not long be in your forests and require only such grace as will let us pass in peace and secrecy.”

Rudolfo looked to Isaak and Charles again. “And you think the Machtvolk queen will grant you access to her book?”

“We will not seek access from her.” The mechoservitor dug into his robes, and Rudolfo felt wind nearby as his scouts drew closer. He whistled them to stand down as the mechanical pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle and passed it to Isaak. “Should we fail,” the mechoservitor said, “our task will fall to you or the antiphon will be incomplete.”

Isaak took the bundle and looked at it.

“It is the only existing copy,” the mechoservitor said, “and it should remain so.”

The first mechoservitor spoke to Isaak now, even as Rudolfo opened his own mouth to speak. “If you change your mind the book will bring you to us, cousin. It is glorious to serve the light by way of the dream. We beseech you to reconsider and take your part in formulating the antiphon. We will not send for you again.”

Isaak said nothing. And before Rudolfo could find his own words, the mechoservitors turned and sped from the clearing.

Follow them, he signed to the scouts surrounding them. At a distance, but do not breach the Machtvolk border.

He heard the faintest clicking of tongues to the roofs of mouths as the scouts set out. As they left, he looked to Charles and Isaak. “It seems we have much to discuss,” Rudolfo said.

Isaak nodded absently, carefully unwrapping the book while shielding it from the rain with his cloak. It was an old volume, one that had somehow been spared the destruction of the Great Library.

“What book is it?” Charles asked, leaning in.

Isaak read the cover. “It is Tertius’s Exegesis of Select Lunar Prophecies As Recorded in the Book of Dreaming Kings.

As if on cue, the rain around them let up as high winds pushed back the clouds enough to leak the moon’s blue-green light over the clearing. In the distance, Rudolfo heard the fading clack and clank of the metal men as they ran west, but the metal man before him captured all his attention.

Isaak looked at the book and then raised his amber jeweled eyes as if in prayer. “It requires a response,” Isaak said as he gazed upon the moon. And there was such sacredness, such conviction in Isaak’s voice that Rudolfo could not help but join his friend in staring at the sky. Above them, that same wind brought back the clouds, shrouding what little light they had as the rain once more began to fall.