Antiphon

Chapter 27

Neb

An unsettling calm flooded him, and Neb looked down to where he stood upon the silver pond before looking back up to the waiting mechoservitors.

He could feel their song now vibrating up through his feet, and he could hear the whispering of their processing scrolls in the aether.

And from where he stood, he could sense a myriad other vibrations in the strange waters.

You stand upon the veins of the world. They are yours to command now, something whispered within him. And the aether is yours to walk, but you will need assistance there.

He cocked his head. “Father?”

I am with you, Son, but only for a short while. I cannot follow where you must go. A strong sense of urgency flooded him, and he felt the pull of his inner eye eastward across the aether. But whatever lay there was out of reach.

Neb walked to the waiting mechoservitors, and as he did, they both knelt. He took his robe from them and clothed himself. One reached within a pouch to withdraw a small object and hold it out to him in a closed metal fist. “I’ve held this for you, Lord Whym,” the mechoservitor said, its voice reedy.

When the small black bird fell into the palm of his hand, the world shifted and Neb fought the vertigo that seized him. His mind flashed back to his last encounter with it, lying naked and staked in the Churning Wastes while the Blood Guard took their knives to him and pressed a similar bit of carved stone into his skin. Now he saw the meaning of it.

The stone extends my sight within the aether. They’d used it to find the location of the antiphon.

Yes. Once more, the whispering of his father’s ghost.

Neb felt the slightest tingle beneath his scalp, soft fingers on his brain, pulling at him, and he gave himself to it. This is how you look, the whisper continued. And Neb understood, bending the lens of the dreamstone east.

He found Petronus first. The old man stood at the foot of a tall door, surrounded by a ragged group of Gypsy Scouts, Gray Guard and sailors looking out of place. The song poured out from the old man.

No, he realized, it poured out from the pouch the old man held.

Neb smiled. “You hold the dream, Father Petronus.”

Petronus jerked alert and looked around, his eyes wide.

“Do not be afraid, Father. It’s only me.”

His voice was incredulous. “Neb?”

There was a low rumbling, and Neb saw that the gate was slowly swinging open. And though he could not see behind the gate with his eyes, the aether showed him. A single metal man dressed in Androfrancine robes worked the large wheel that opened the way to them. Beyond him, others took down the scaffolding and camouflage to reveal a large metal vessel that was tethered to the ground. Overhead, the moon filled the small circle of sky visible from the bottom of the hollow mountain.

Amber eyes turned upon him. “The antiphon is ready for you, Nebios Homeseeker, son of Whym.”

But before he could speak, those ghostly fingers were in his mind again, pulling him away, and he looked south to see a storm of wind that raced across the shattered plains, raising clouds of dust. Time, his father’s ghost told him, is of the essence.

“But how will I-?”

The ghost anticipated him. You will swim the veins. I will show you. Already, the fingers were back, and Neb felt as if parts of his mind long left dark were suddenly lit, though poorly. He saw the veins and the pools they linked to, a world shot through with silver, and he knew that it was made for him. He held dominion over every aspect of it, and it served him with gladness. The vast network of pools were his for traveling if he bent them to his will.

He was before Petronus again as the man and the others moved quickly into the large cavern behind the door. “I will be to you soon,” he said, “but they will be to you sooner. You must hold the gate against them.”

Petronus opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, a scream rose from the west so loud that it blotted out the song. The old man’s eyes went wide and Neb faltered. He lost hold of the aether and found himself suddenly pulled back to the cave and the mechoservitors who still knelt before him.

The scream was still with him even in that place, and the sound of it raised the hair on his arms. There was familiarity in the shrill cry, and the power of it drowned out all other sound within the aether.

He released the stone and fell to his knees to bury his face in his hands and somehow rub the pain from his skull.

You are new to the dreamstone, the whisper told him, but with time you will learn how to control it.

He couldn’t find his voice. Instead, Neb poured focus into his own thought. Who is it?

It is irrelevant; time is of the essence. The antiphon awaits.

But the familiarity of the voice chewed him, and with shaking fingers, he reached out again to take up the carved kin-raven.

Her scream flooded him when his fingers closed around the stone. Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he forced himself to steer into the scream and follow it west across the aether. What he saw broke him, and his own cry joined hers.

He knew her instantly, stretched out upon the table, and the shock of seeing her there blinded him momentarily to the massive crowd that watched. He saw the lines of words upon her bleeding skin, saw the strong, sure hand that wielded the silver knife, and it summoned a memory of pain and despair. He felt the bite of the hard ground in wounds now healed, felt the burn of salted blades upon the softest of his skin, and heard the questions incessantly asked as the kin-raven was pressed to each wound.

Neb blinked. “Winters,” he whispered.

Their eyes met for the briefest moment before her back arched and she screamed again. The man who stood over her wore a red robe and set to his work with a quiet smile. Now Neb took in their surroundings and saw the gathering. He saw the platform, saw Jin Li Tam as she whispered with a woman he did not know before handing a baby-Lord Jakob, he realized-over to her. Another woman, one who could be an older twin to Winters, stood by watching the man at his knife work.

Abomination.

It was a metal voice that filled his mind, overpowering even the screams.

Neb looked around and singled out a lone robed figure on a hillside. “Who are you?”

I am one who watches. Your woman is beneath the knife. Come and save her, I bid you. There was a tone of amusement in the voice. Surely your baptism has revealed your heritage. Surely you have now attained dominion over the ancient ways.

Come and save her, Abomination.

Neb saw the distant flash of jeweled eyes from beneath the cowl.

Do not listen, the ghost of his father whispered.

But Neb did not know how to do that. The sound of the screams tore at him from the inside, wrenching a sob from him even as he pulled back from the aether.

“Time is of the essence,” he told the metal men. “I must leave you now. Join Rudolfo in his work. He will hide you among the others.”

He turned to the bargaining pool and stepped out onto it, willing its silver water to bear his weight. He clutched the kin-raven in his fist and felt the veins of the world shifting and whispering beneath his feet.

He looked first east to the pool buried deep beneath the antiphon, then looked west to find the pool closest to Winters.

All will be lost, the voice inside told him, if you do not reach the antiphon.

He heard the truth in it, though he also knew from the canticle that played among his abacus, his metal servants, that only part of the antiphon was truly complete. Silence to the south told him that his abacus had failed there, that Frederico’s kin had yet to attain the staff. And in the midst of the madness to his west, a dream could not be found.

He felt the weight of it, but a greater weight settled upon him, and it surprised him after so long away from the girl.

“No,” Neb said, “all will be lost if I lose her.”

Then, he bent the fingers of his mind west and pulled at the vein that would carry him there. Light swallowed him as he descended suddenly into the pool and rushed at him, roaring, as he shot west, now blue-green lightning in a twisting stream of silver.

When he stood at last upon the pool he’d called for, he stretched out a hand over it.

“Clothe me,” Nebios Whym cried out, though he was uncertain why he did so.

The blood of the earth heard him and gave itself to him, rising from the pool to enfold him in its embrace. It crept over him, into his ears and nostrils and mouth, and he pulled it in to himself with a reflex he did not know he had.

He felt strength flooding his body even as the makers and workers within that fluid shored him up and fit his hands for war. He felt his mind clearing, felt the gentle rhythm of his breathing as it steadied.

He stared down at his hands and flexed them. The sheath that encompassed them flexed as well, fluctuating between a bright white that blinded and a silver so pure that its intensity reflected his surroundings and bent light around him.

He took the dreamstone from his pocket now, letting his fingers brush its dark surface. Winters’s screams still flooded the aether, and he winced as he turned in the direction they came from.

Two leagues hence he knew a ladder and hatch awaited him. Beyond that, the woman he loved and must soon leave lay writhing beneath knives his own body remembered too well.

“I am coming,” he whispered to her where she lay stretched upon the table.

He ignored the metal laughter that tickled in the back of his brain and, instead, gave himself over to the surge of strength within his legs, the sudden sureness of his feet in dark places, the sweeping song that filled him up to overflowing and threatened to burst his heart.

Vlad Li Tam

A wall of water struck him and then lifted Vlad Li Tam up, bringing him down hard, and he moved into a breaststroke in the direction of Behemoth. The sea was hot enough to burn him, and his nose stung from the briny steam that lifted from it.

What in hells is it?

It thrashed the waters, and as a wave lifted him up, Vlad saw that the beast-something like a snake-had turned in their direction, its maw grinding open. Ahead, Mal Li Tam swam for the open mouth, and Vlad tried to recall what Obadiah had told him about Behemoth.

He will take you into the basements of the ladder.

His first grandson spilled over into the gaping mouth and vanished.

Vlad felt the strain in his chest as he swam for it. He did not know what lay in the basements of the ladder, but he knew that the dream required it and that the d’jin had brought him to the dream and to this place. He swam and felt his muscles straining.

When the next wave raised him up, he was nearly upon it. And then when it dropped him, he found himself tumbling into a metal mouth lined with algae and sea moss. He caught at it with his hands to slow his fall, but the water pushed him deeper in, and the slick sides of the inner mouth afforded him no grip. Vlad felt himself tumbling and then felt his fall slowing as the beast leveled out.

At one point, he thought he brushed up against a soft, yielding form that flinched at his touch, but then he fell away from it and found himself suddenly caught by a pocket of water. His fingers were still curled tightly around the handle of his knife, and when his feet pushed against the soft, slippery floor, he kicked against it gently and let that kick carry him to a surface that was not far out of reach. Even under the hot water, he could hear the loud grind and clank of Behemoth’s machinery, and when he found the warm, brine-thick air, he drew it in quietly.

There was a faint glow to the algae that cast eerie light upon the large chamber he found himself in. Several spans away, he saw his grandson crawling onto a metal platform as a new sound joined the dull roar that enveloped them-a high-pitched whine.

The water level started dropping.

Vlad took stock quickly. He had his knife and he had the advantage of the scout magicks for at least another handful of hours. But his grandson had years, and more than that, he seemed to have some sense of what he was here to do. Even now, the young man was walking along the far metal wall, and Vlad watched him stop to work the wheel of a large hatch. When it swung open, red light poured out from it, and Vlad watched as Mal Li Tam disappeared into it, pulling the hatch closed behind him.

He made his way to the platform and climbed onto it, walking to the hatch. He could feel his years now in his muscles and joints as they protested with each step, and he forced his breath in and out slowly as he lay his ear to the warm metal door. Beyond it, he heard nothing but the sounds of massive gears and the shifting plates of the segmented metal snake.

As a Tam, he’d had special dispensation from the Pope and had seen many of the mechanical wonders of the Old World and the older world that lay beneath the ruins of it, but he’d seen nothing like this. He’d thought his iron armada or their mechanical men to be a great wonder, but this Behemoth was like nothing he’d imagined, and he suspected that this was merely the anteroom.

He counted to a hundred before he put his hands upon the wheel and turned it slowly. Then, cautiously, he pulled open the hatch enough to look inside. A long corridor stretched out, and it moved and twisted even as the beast did. Its walls were lined with doors, illuminated dimly by red jewels set into the ceiling. At the far end, a door stood open where Mal must’ve gone, and Vlad quickly slipped into the hallway and pulled the hatch closed behind him.

He felt the pressure shifting around him as the beast descended in a wide, slow spiral, and somewhere behind him, the whining suddenly stopped. Yet even as Behemoth moved, he found his feet steady beneath him and he made his way slowly up the hallway.

He was halfway down the shifting corridor when his grandson appeared at the end. He walked easy, standing tall with his knife dangling loosely in his hand as he went. He left the door open and tugged at another. This one did not open and the young man moved to the next, gradually working his way back toward Vlad.

He could not imagine what might be behind the doors but was certain it wasn’t worth being discovered, despite his curiosity. He could visualize bunks and passenger cabins, supply rooms and galleys in this most unusual machine, and he wondered if somewhere within this metal serpent there also lay a pilothouse or if, like the metal men, there was simply a cavity filled with scrolls that spun out a scripted response that had been etched into it millennia before by whomever had crafted the mighty mechanical.

Vlad found a corner of the corridor with less light and huddled in it, mindful of the puddle his wet clothing created. At the far end of the corridor, Mal Li Tam opened another half dozen doors, disappearing into each for minutes that seemed like hours.

Just stay to your end of it, Vlad willed. Then, he turned himself to thought.

She had brought him to the ladder with some urgency, and he suspected now that the timing of his arrival was intended to coincide with the full moon. And certainly, it seemed that his family’s blood played into it as well. But what of the strange ceremony aboard both the ship he had fled and, he assumed, the other ships that were gathering there? Was this some new aspect of those dark blood magicks this resurgence had brought back? And what was his d’jin’s role in it?

He collated the data and stored it with the rest he’d mined in the time since he’d first read the slender book that he’d taken from his grandson.

As they descended, the corridor shuddered, and Vlad heard the deep groaning of the metal even as he felt it beneath his feet and the red lights flickered and dimmed. He watched the jewels and found himself wondering what powered the large machine. Surely not the sunstones that drove his armada or the metal men. The waters around the Ladder killed those ancient power sources, if Obadiah’s experience rang true, and whatever it was that tainted this part of the Ghosting Crests also held the d’jin at bay. Thousands of the rare sea lights, including the one he specifically followed, were waiting at the edge of a perimeter only visible because of their presence.

The machine lurched and shuddered now, and Vlad pressed his back tighter against the wall he crouched against. His grandson was moving toward him again, and once more Vlad calculated just how long the powders would hold. He’d remagicked before returning to the deck with his daughter Myr maybe two hours earlier, leaving him nearly twice that remaining. They would gutter and spark for thirty minutes before finally burning out, but if he kept to the shadows.

Another groan, and the vessel shivered again, its descent leveling out before it shifted and rose and then stopped.

Mal Li Tam poked his head out from an open door and came into the hallway with deliberate steps. He moved quickly down the hall, and Vlad found himself holding his breath, gripping his knife tightly, as the young man approached.

I could kill him now and be done with it. The naked back was to him now as Mal worked the hatch, and Vlad saw at least three paths that would leave the boy bleeding out his last. He was under no illusions that it was exactly how things would play out at some point between now and the first moment his magicks began to gutter-he could not afford to lose the one advantage he held. But for now, he restrained himself. Still, each time he imagined the scenario-the knife blade slipping between his grandson’s ribs or sliding across his throat-a warm satisfaction flooded him, fueled by the memory of his children’s screams.

Mal left the hatch open when he passed through, and Vlad counted again silently before he followed.

Behemoth’s mouth gaped open now, and faint light filtered in the massive pool it created. At the edge of it, near a row of metal teeth the height of a man, Mal paced and looked for a place to climb. Vlad moved slowly through pockets of shadow, eyes never leaving his prey, and when the young man scrambled up over the teeth and into the dim light beyond, Vlad moved faster, the sound of his feet in the water masked by the grinding and clanking of the mechanical, though even now those noises were subsiding.

He reached the edge of the mouth and leaped to catch the top of a massive tooth, and despite the scout powders, he felt the exertion in his muscles and in his chest. Pulling himself up with a muffled groan, he stretched himself out over the top of the teeth and held himself in place so he could look around.

Behemoth rested now in a dim lagoon lit poorly by more of the red jewels, casting the dark water in a rust-colored light. It had brought itself to a stop, open mouth pressed close against a stone pier.

This is the basement of the ladder.

The sound of footsteps echoing through the chamber turned his head, and he saw Mal climbing a staircase cut into the far wall. Sighing, Vlad pushed himself up and scrambled onto the pier, trying to control his breathing as he went.

He pulled himself up and turned back to Behemoth where it lay stretched out. The size of it daunted him, and even as he watched, he saw steam venting from it as its gears wound down, and he imagined it sleeping here, waiting for the appointed time for its appearance.

Called forth by blood.

Shivering suddenly, Vlad set off at a brisk walk toward the stairs and soon found himself climbing. He slowed when his ascent stitched his side and threatened his breathing, pausing here and there to listen for the bare slap of Mal’s feet on the steps above him. When he reached the top, he saw another open hatch and found himself reeling from a kind of vertigo when he passed through it and found himself surrounded by water, above and below and around him. It was a corridor of crystal that stretched out across an expanse to end at another hatch.

Mal Li Tam worked the wheel of it and then slipped inside. Vlad followed carefully and quickly after.

He followed his grandson for what seemed hours, up stairs and down ladders, through crystal corridors and red-lit chambers with purposes now lost to time. Finally, as his scout powders showed their first sign of guttering and burning out, he passed through another hatch and came to a sudden stop.

This chamber was also crystalline-vast and round-and hanging in the center of it, suspended by silver wires thick as palm trees, was a massive and dark orb. A circular staircase led up from the bottom of the round chamber, stopping at a platform just beneath the stone, and already Mal was taking those steps two at a time.

This is what he seeks.

And Vlad knew that it must be the same for him, though he did not comprehend what it was exactly. Still, with the younger man’s sudden burst of energy he felt his own sense of urgency grow.

He felt heat just beneath his skin as the scout magicks guttered again, and he tightened his grip upon the handle of the knife. He moved as quickly as he could without making sound or wind, his feet whispering across the floor and then upon the stairs.

Mal had reached the platform now, and from Vlad’s new vantage point, he could better see the orb that hung above them. At first, he thought it was fractured, but as he drew closer he saw that the glass was shot through with silver veins. Already, his grandson had dropped his knife and was climbing up into the thick wires that supported it, moving along the dark surface of the orb.

Vlad reached the platform, scooped up the knife, and leaned back to watch the young man climb.

What is he doing?

Mal Li Tam stood upon the top of the orb now and laid both of his hands upon something that protruded from it. Vlad heard the youth grunting as he tugged on it, and when it began to give, it slid out of the stone with a sound that was nearly music. As he withdrew it, the veins of silver dissipated, and even below on the platform, Vlad felt a tickling in his ears as something, somewhere stirred to life with the faintest vibration.

It built, and he realized that as it did, the light in the room grew. When the long, slender staff was completely free of the stone, Mal Li Tam extended it upward with both hands with a loud cry. The light radiating from the stone’s core reflected white and hot from the surface of the silver staff, but an even greater light, from beyond the crystal room, rose to cast its eerie reflection.

The room itself began to move, the stone rotating with it as the wires that supported it whispered and sang. Vlad placed his back to the railing and crouched, trying to keep his focus on the movements of his grandson as Mal made his way down, the silver rod clenched tightly in one hand.

When his feet are on the platform I will strike.

But the rising light pulled at his eyes, and as it did, he found tears welling up again at the beauty of what he saw. Blue-green light from all sides drove away the shadows as d’jin filled the sea beyond the crystal vault. Writhing and twisting, they danced through the waters, and the vibration in his ears became a familiar song even as the knife within his hands became an antiphon of its own-a response to that song that he would soon give.

One d’jin, larger than the others and moving with a fluid grace he knew very well, separated itself from the others and descended into the silver veins, flooding the glass stone and transforming it into a blinding moon.

Mal’s feet dangled over the platform now, and Vlad held his breath.

When those feet touched down, Vlad Li Tam smiled and let loose his fury, bathed in the light of a love he could not comprehend, knife-dancing to a song that required his response.

Petronus

They moved through the caves at a rapid walk, often reduced to single file as they followed their metal guide. Petronus walked at the front with Grymlis and Rafe Merrique, while the others spread out behind them.

The metal man had said little since admitting them, despite Petronus’s attempts to engage it, and now he’d left the mechanical to its secrets, focusing instead on his unexpected encounter with Neb in a waking dream that left his nose bleeding and his skull pounding. The boy was nothing like the orphan he’d found in Sethbert’s camp two years ago. There was a confidence and strength about him even beyond what he’d attained in the grave-digging of Windwir, and along with that confidence and strength, there was a hard edge and a sadness. It didn’t take much Franci behaviorist training to see it or to speculate as to what kinds of events might have brought it forth in him.

Just his time under their knives would be enough to change him forever. But Petronus suspected more than that had altered the boy. Beyond the cutting, there was the reason behind it-his role as the Marsher Homeseeker, something that until a few weeks ago Petronus had disbelieved.

Until I was pulled into the mythology myself.

And now, he could not help but believe that he stood upon the precipice of something of vital importance, though he had no real information to prove it was so. And equally, he believed that it was likely he and this ragged group of men he led would not survive to see the antiphon do what it was made for.

Still, he knew they would give their lives for it.

Ahead of them, a dim light grew, and when they spilled out into the open, Petronus saw that it was the moon, high and full above the mountain. It washed the valley with blue-green light, reflecting off a large metal mass he saw there.

He’d seen it hidden with evergreen branches upon a massive series of scaffolds those times he’d seen this space in his dreams, but now he saw it standing free of the scaffolds and open to the night.

No, he realized, not standing. Floating. Easily the size of one of Tam’s vessels, made of a burnished gold, the ship hung tethered to the rocky ground. A large door in it stood open, and metal men hauled sacks and crates of supplies along a gangway.

Petronus blinked, taking in the image and recognizing it.

“Gods,” he whispered. “Do you see it?”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Grymlis nod. “Aye, Father.”

He’d seen the drawings-those fragments they’d been able to find in Rufello’s Book of Specifications. It was that old Czarist engineer’s greatest accomplishment, blending ancient sciences and magicks with those considered modern when he served the czars. As a boy, Felip Carnelyin’s One Hundredth Tale had been one of his favorites, though much of the story had been lost over the millennia that had passed. Still, Petronus had no doubt what he saw. It clicked into place the last of this lock’s cipher, and he understood.

It is the ship that sailed the moon.

Somehow, the metal men of Sanctorum Lux had reconstructed it here, in secret, and even now Petronus saw they prepared it for flight.

He forced his feet to their work again and moved out of the cave and into the open air, allowing the men behind him to fan out. He wondered how many of them would recognize what hung suspended in the air before them, chained to the ground as it hummed and sputtered.

He felt a metal hand upon his shoulder, and he tore his eyes away from the ship to take in the metal man before him.

“Father Petronus,” the mechoservitor said, “you should not have come.”

His eyes slid past the amber eyes to the vessel beyond. It is larger than I imagined. Swallowing, he forced his eyes back to the metal man. “Hebda told me I was needed here.”

“He and his kind have been interfering a great deal of late.”

His kind. “Still,” Petronus said, “we are here. We will see your antiphon safely into the air.” He could not take his eyes off of it, and quick glances to his left and right told him that it was the same for his men as more and more of them filed into the open space. “When do you launch?”

The mechoservitor’s eye shutters flashed open and closed as steam released from the steam vent. “When the Homeseeker instructs us to.”

Neb had told him earlier that he would come soon, though Petronus was not sure how that could be possible, nor how the boy would wade through the small army that even now was gathering at the gate. Another voice spoke up to his right as Rafe Merrique stepped forward. “I don’t suppose,” the pirate asked, “this Homeseeker will instruct you regarding the return of my vessel?”

The metal man regarded him, and when it spoke, the tone was measured and matter-of-fact. “I regret the loss of your vessel in its service to the light, Captain Merrique, but I would be unkind if I failed to point out that it is unlikely you or your men will have use of it given your choice to come here.”

The pirate’s chuckle was pained, and Petronus winced at it. They’d talked enough in the quiet hours before dawn to know that none of their group expected to survive their latest venture, but he couldn’t blame the man for hoping. Now, Rafe Merrique spoke with a flourish. “Then I shall hope that she served you and the light well.”

Again, the mechanical was blunt. “The vessel was functional. But a misinterpretation of our role in that aspect of the dream has cost us your vessel along with two of our brethren and a combined fourteen percent of the holdings of Sanctorum Lux.”

Merrique opened his mouth to speak, but the mechanical was already moving away, back to the line of mechanicals as they loaded the ship. His jaw went firm for a moment, and that was the only outward sign of the man’s anger.

Petronus turned and took in the last of their company as it emerged from the cave. The men that staggered out into the moonlight were a brooding, weary bunch, carrying only their packs and weapons. They’d sent their extra gear, and that of the horses that had survived, away in the care of Geoffrus and his men, knowing even as they did it that the horses were as likely to be eaten as cared for. if the Waste mongrel and his band weren’t taken by the Y’Zirite forces first.

Grymlis took a step closer and lowered his voice. “What are your orders, Father?”

“We hold the gate until the ship is up.” Certainly, they couldn’t hold it forever. At some point, their enemy had to find a way around the Rufello locks. But if Neb came soon and the locks held long enough, they could hold the cave. In the end it would be only a matter of time before the Y’Zirites reached them, and Petronus was under no illusion over how it would go for them. Certainly, he himself was set apart from the promised violence-his role as the Last Son of P’Andro Whym assured his survival, according to the Blood Guard Rafe had captured, now buried in shallow graves just beyond the gate. But he also knew that he would take his own life, no matter how abhorrent that was to him, before he went into their custody.

“Establish a line in the caves and work it in shifts,” he said. “Mandatory rest for the others; I want them hydrated and steady. Neb said he would be here soon.”

When Grymlis spoke next, Petronus heard the awe in his voice and noted that it was barely a whisper. “And where do you imagine Neb will be going?”

Petronus met his eyes and then looked up to where the moon hung in the sky above them. He did not say it; he did not want to. Many Androfrancine scholars disputed the accuracy of The Hundredth Tale, claiming it to be a story twisted by mythology and mysticism. But the vessel was here-or one much like it-and there were just as many scholars who believed Rufello’s science had once guided a Czarist Lunar Expedition so many millennia before and that it was possible, just possible, that the disaster of that expedition had eventually brought about the Year of the Falling Moon and the wizard who fell.

Grymlis followed his eyes, saw the moon, and then nodded. “We hold the cave until the ship is up.”

Grymlis moved off barking his orders while men scrambled and Petronus pulled aside to think. He had a list of questions longer than his leg but knew this was not the time to ask them. Still, his mind required that he order them, and he was setting himself to that work when the ground shook and a distant rumble tickled his eardrums.

He looked up quickly and saw that Grymlis had stopped, midorder; then the orders came faster and the men who’d been pitching their bedrolls abandoned them, took up their weapons and sped into the cave. The metal men stopped along the line, looking in unison toward the cave entrance before starting up again as one and moving their supplies aboard at increased speed.

Petronus made his way to a white-faced Grymlis, certain his own face was pale as well. “We’ve underestimated them.”

Grymlis nodded. “We have. They’ve brought blast powders to the door, I’ll wager.”

Rafe Merrique joined them, drawing his cutlass and testing its edge with his thumb. “Then let’s hope this so-called Homeseeker comes quickly.”

Petronus looked one last time to the ship and to the moon that hung above it. Then, without a word he entered the cave to join his men in their last work upon the earth.