Lamentation

“Do you,” Rudolfo said again, his voice even quieter, “want mercy for your terrible crime?”

“I didn’t know it would work, Lord. I swear to you. And none of us thought that if it did work it would be so… so utterly, so…”

Rudolfo raised his hand and his eyebrows. The man stopped. “How could you know? How could anyone know? Xhum Y’zir has been dead over two thousand years. And his so-called Age of Laughing Madness has lo SMadcoung passed.” Rudolfo carefully selected another honeyed cake, nibbling at its corners. “So my question remains: Do you wish mercy?”

The man nodded.

“Very well. You have one opportunity and only one. I can not say the same for your liege.” Rudolfo looked over at the metal man. His eyes flashed and a slight trail of steam leaked from the corners of his mouth. “In a few moments, I am going to leave you here with my best Gypsy Scouts and my metallic friend, Isaak. I want you to very slowly, very clearly and in great detail, explain everything you know about scripting, maintaining and repairing Androfrancine mechoservitors.” Rudolfo stood. “You only have one chance and you only have a few hours. If you do not satisfy me, you will spend the rest of your natural days in chains, on Tormentor’s Row for all the known world to see, while my Physicians of Penitent Torture peel away your skin with salted knives and wait for it to grow back.” He tossed back the rest of his wine. “You will spend the rest of your days in urine and feces and blood, with the screams of young children in your ears and the genocide of a city on your soul.”

The man vomited now, choking foul-smelling bile onto his tunic.

Rudolfo smiled. “I’m so glad you understand me.” He paused at the tent flap. “Isaak, pay careful attention to the man.”

Outside, he waved for Gregoric. “Bring me a bird.”

He wrote the message himself. It was a simple, one-word question. After he wrote it, he tied it to the bird’s foot with the green thread of peace, but it felt like a lie. He whispered a destination to the bird and pressed his lips briefly to its small, soft head. Then he threw it at the sky and the sky caught it, sent it flapping south to the Entrolusian camp.

He whispered the question he had written. It sounded empty, but he whispered it again. “Why?”

Neb

Neb didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until he felt a hand shaking him awake. He opened his eyes, jerking alert. The redheaded woman knelt next to him. She was wearing a dark cloak, but the hood was pushed back and her hair was up.

She placed a finger over her lips. When he nodded, she spoke in a low voice. “War is coming. It’s not safe here. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“Sethbert destroyed Windwir and is giddy with his handiwork. He’s keeping you alive so that your story can entertain him. Do you understand?”

Neb swallowed. He’d wonder S#82'›‹ about='about'›

“I’m leaving now. I want you to come with me.”

He nodded, scrambling out of the cot.

“Stay near me,” she said, drawing a pouch out from under her shirt where it hung on a cord around her neck. She loosed the drawstrings and poured a handful of powder into her hand. She cast it at her forehead, her shoulders and her feet, then licked the remainder of the powder from the palm of her hand.

Neb watched as her eyes rolled back, then watched as she faded to a shadow in front of his eyes. For a moment, he thought she might magick him as well, and the prospect terrified him. He’d read about scout-magicks and knew how they could affect the untrained and inexperienced. But then she sealed the pouch and dropped it back inside her shirt.

“Follow me,” she said. She unraveled a silk string from her wrist and attached it to his wrist as well.

Holding the string, he moved with her as she slipped out of the tent and into the predawn morning. Neb followed her into the darker places of the darkened camp, sliding past tents where soldiers snored and mumbled. He did the best he could to keep track of where they were, but it seemed she changed direction just as he would get oriented.

Finally, they left the camp altogether and moved silently through the forest. As they ran, the redheaded woman’s words sank into him.

Sethbert destroyed Windwir. Those words kept at him, pressing him, prodding him, but he did not know why. He’d heard the soldiers earlier, but agreed that Androfrancine curiosity was a more likely culprit than the Overseer, madness or not. But now, this woman not only believed it, but also said war was coming, and she could have just left. But she hadn’t-she had come to him first, taking more risk onto herself than she needed.

Neb trusted that.

Sethbert destroyed Windwir. Again, it pressed and prodded. Something behind that wall of words crumbled a bit more, and light peeked through.

Sethbert.

When it hit him, Neb stopped short and the string went taut. The redheaded woman stopped, and in the gray light Neb could see the faintest shimmer of her as she crouched.

“Why have you stopped? We’re nearly there.”

He wished he could open his mouth and explain to her why he couldn’t go with her. He wi Sithze=shed he could tell her about the bolt of electricity that passed through him when he realized the truth.

Sethbert destroyed Windwir.

Neb hadn’t really killed his father-Sethbert had. And it changed everything.

Because of that, he couldn’t leave with her now.

Because of that, he had to go back and kill Sethbert.

Petronus

As the sun rose behind him in a birdless sky, Petronus crested the ridge and looked down on the Desolation of Windwir.

Nothing could have prepared him for it. He’d crested this ridge hundreds of times, riding out and back on various assignments for the Order. Certainly he’d known this time that he wouldn’t see the familiar sights. The large ships at the docks, low in the water with cargo bound for the Entrolusian Delta. The wide, high stone walls that encircled the various quarters that made up the world’s greatest city. The spires of the cathedrals and of the Great Library, colors waving in the morning breeze. The houses and shops outside the city gates, nestled up against the walls like calves against their mother.

Petronus slid from the saddle and let his horse tend itself. He stood, shaking, studying the scene that unfolded before him.

He’d known better than to expect any of these things, but he’d thought surely there’d be something familiar to him here.

There was not.

The charred ruins were scattered across the field, and there was no clear delineation where the wreckage of the city stopped and the wreckage of the outlying areas began. Flecked with impact craters and mounds of black rubble, the landscape stretched out and away, ending abruptly at the river’s edge. It was bordered by hills to the west and south, and Petronus could see the smoke and flags of the Gypsy camp nestled between foothills.

There was no sign of the Entrolusian camp, but knowing Sethbert, it was hidden away, within reach but not easy reach. A man seldom fell far afield of his father, and from everything he’d heard, Sethbert was every bit as paranoid and problematic as the man who’d raised him and trained him up into his current role. Petronus had once had Aubert removed from the Papal Residence under the watchful eyes of the Gray Guard for threatening the Pope’s hospitality staff after accusing them of some kind of treachery or another.

Of course, the same theory would apply to Rudolfo. He’d known the father well enough. Jakob was a fair albeit ruthless man who ruled his Ninefold Forest Houses with a blend of Androfrancine sensibility and Snsih. uncompromising attention to the Rites of Kin-Clave. He hadn’t balked at putting heretics on Tormentor’s Row… but neither had he been willing to allow the Order access to those prisoners.