what awaited them there, it was time to check her assumptions.
“Sethbert used you,” she said. “This much is obvious. The Androfrancines unearthed some ancient weapon and Sethbert somehow bent your script to his own dark purposes.”
Isaak said nothing for a moment, his eye shutters fluttering like steel moths. When he spoke, his voice was low. “I understand that the sons and daughters of House Li Tam are among the best educated in the world,” he said. “You are familiar with the history of the Old World?”
She nodded. “What of it we know. Most of it is lost.”
“When P’Andro Whym led the extermination of the Young Wizard Kings-the Seven Sons of Xhum Y’Zir-their father shut himself away for seven years, and at the end of that time, brought forth a spell-”
Her breath went out from her. “The Seven Cacophonic Deaths,” she said.
Isaak nodded. “He sent his Death Choirs into all the lands, singing their blood magick and calling down the wrath of that grieving archmage.”
Jin Li Tam knew the story well. After that Third Cataclysm, the Age of Laughing Madness settled upon what generations to come would call the Churning Wastes. A few had survived, but they were driven mad by what they’d seen. A few-a very few-had hidden themselves beneath the ground or in the mountain caves of the Dragon’s Spine that cut across the far north. These had come forth later, digging the ruins and gathering up what little remained for what was left of the world. Of course, by then that first Rudolfo had already disappeared north and west, beyond the Keeper’s Wall, to hide himself away in that ocean of prairie at the far end of the New World.
Jin’s voice lowered. “You have the spell?”
Isaak nodded. “I sang it in the central courts of Windwir and watched the city reel from it.”
Jin shuddered. “How could such a thing happen?”
Isaak turned away. “My script was modified. They were always so careful with us. Brother Charles expunged my memory each night, careful that I should not keep such knowledge. But his apprentice-under Lord Sethbert’s instruction-altered my activity script.”
Jin shook her head. “Not that. I can piece that together myself. Sethbert has fingers on many strings. What I don’t understand is why they would even undertake such dangerous work in the first place?”
Isaak looked at her, and steam trickled from his exhaust grate. “The preservation of all knowledge is at the heart of the Androfrancine vision.”
Jin knew this was true. Along with an abiding curiosity about how and why things work. She’d heard stories of fabulous machines and intricate mechanicals kept locked away in the hidden vaults of the now dead city. Her father, along with others close to the Order, had benefited from this. There was the mechanical bird in his garden-a trinket really. But more practical than that, there were the iron ships at his docks, powered by engines that the Androfrancines had built from ancient specifications and housed in high, broad iron-shod cruisers. It made House Li Tam the most formidable naval power in the Named Lands.
Perhaps, she thought now, the root of Windwir’s fall lay exposed in that.
They hid in their city, guarded by Gods knew what in addition to their Gray Guard. And they doled out scraps of knowledge and innovation to those they favored, withholding it from those they did not. They held on to what they learned until they felt the world was ready for it.
They’d been so cautious about those outside of their city but had somehow not brought the same level of care within their own Order. Somehow, Sethbert had learned of the spell and had then learned how to use it to bring down the Androfrancines.
She looked at the metal man across from her. She wondered if he wasn’t another example of their failure to watch themselves as well as they watched the world. “I’m curious about you, Isaak,” she said.
He blinked at her. “Why would you be curious about me?”
She shrugged, smiling. “I’ve never met a metal man before. You are somewhat of a rarity.”
He nodded. “There was a time when there were thousands of us. When Rufello drew up his Specifications and Observations of the Mechanical Age, he was working with the broken and discarded remains of mechoservitors found in the ruins of the Eldest Days, broken artifacts from the Age of the Younger Gods.”
Jin finished chewing her rice before speaking. “When were you built?”
He hesitated, and Jin noted that hesitation.
But then he continued. “My memory scrolls have been replaced at least twice since my first awareness. I hav‹warifye no record of those times. My first memory is Brother Charles asking me if I were awake and could I recite the Fourteenth Precept of the Francine Accord.” He paused, and she watched his eyes alternate between dim and bright as the gears in his head whirred. “My last awakening was twenty-two years, three months, four weeks, six hours and thirty-one minutes ago. I’m not sure when I was built, though I suspect that knowledge is stamped somewhere onto me. Brother Charles was a meticulous craftsman.”
She studied him. His chest bellows moved in and out to keep whatever strange fire burning in him hot enough to boil the water and keep him moving, to keep air moving through him to power his voice. His eyes were jewels of some kind-dull yellow and glowing with varying degrees of brightness. His mouth was more of a flap that opened and closed-probably to humanize him more than for anything else. A wonder of the ancient world, brought back carefully by adapting old knowledge to present-day capability.
“He was indeed a meticulous craftsman,” she said.
Isaak looked at her and the eyes dimmed. “He was… my father.”
The bellows began to pump faster and harder. Water leaked from around the eyes-another humanizing characteristic: A machine that could cry. A high pitched squeal leaked from his mouth.
She put down her bowl and reached across, placing her hand on his shoulder. It was hard beneath the coarse wool robe. “I don’t know what to say, Isaak,” she told him.
In the end she said nothing, and simply sat with him while he cried.
Neb
Neb looked up from the wheelbarrow and saw the riders from the south, a large group of them. He started counting horses but gave up-there was no way he could count them. There were too many.
Dropping the load of bones, he turned and ran for Petronus, shouting at the top of his lungs. The old man looked up from across the blackened field, but he was too far away for Neb to see the expression on his face. Other nearby workers stopped what they were doing until Petronus waved and shouted at them to get back to the task at hand.
Neb ran as fast as he could, but the riders still overtook him and he fought his way through the storm of ash they kicked up. As it cleared he saw they had surrounded Petronus, and a large man on an enormous stallion- Sethbert, he realized-leaned down to speak with the old man.
Neb approached but stayed off to the side, listening.
“I thought,” Sethbert said, “you were in Kendrick.”
Petronus bowed. “I went, Lord. I’ve come back.”
Sethbert snorted. “I see that. And what exactly are you doing?”
Neb watched as the cavalry around Sethbert surveyed the group, quickly counting heads. An unfelt breeze lifted ash from the ground and he heard a low whistle. “We’re here,” a voice said in the faintest whisper. Neb nodded and his stomach went to water.
“We are burying our dead,” Petronus said.
“Surely,” Sethbert said, “you are aware that an Exercise in Holiness has been decreed?”
Petronus nodded. “We’ve been very careful not to enter the city itself. We were going to wait until we had your permission to suspend the Exercise for humanitarian reasons. It is my understanding that precedence was set for this by-”
Sethbert raised his hand. “I know, I know. I’m not a fool, old man. I know a bit about Androfrancine Law. But we can move past that. I will do far more than grant you permission.”
Neb saw a pained look cross Petronus’s face, as if he knew what Sethbert was going to say next and dreaded its outcome.
Sethbert straightened himself up as high as he could in the saddle, his jowls shaking as he jiggled around. “Bring them in,” he shouted to his men. “Bring them all in.” The soldiers started herding the workers.
He smiled down at them, and his horse danced a bit while they waited. When everyone was gathered, he
