the city. He looked around, trying to use the hills and the river to determine where he stood within the city. He was close to where the Garden had once been, or at least he thought he was. Not having walls and buildings to navigate by made it a difficult chore. But he picked his way north the equivalent of half a block, then west, then north again.
When he was reasonably sure he’d found it, he sat down in the ash and pulled his knees to himself. They’d already been through this part of the city, raking the ash for bones and artifacts.
Neb pulled the ring from his pocket and studied it for the hundredth time. It was simple and rare-the way that life should be. He’d cleaned it carefully by the light of a guttering candle when Petronus made his rounds around the camp at night. Now, it shone dully in his hand. He looked at it, turning it in the gray daylight of emerging winter.
“My king would speak with you,” a heavy, guttural voice whispered to his left.
Neb jumped, looking around but seeing nothing. Still, this darker light was perfect for scouts. “Who is your king?”
The voice moved now. “My king is the Reluctant Prophet of Xhum Y’Zir, the Unloved Son of P’Andro Whym, Most Beautiful of the Northern Marshes.”
Neb hesitated as the voice continued away. He looked back toward camp, so distant now that he could barely make out the figures that moved along its edges. He looked north, in the direction that the voice went, and saw the line of dark trees. Behind the trees, smoke drifted into the sky from the Marsh King’s camp fires.
The voice returned. “My king would speak with you,” it said again. “You will not be harmed. You will return bearing his grace to your people.”
“I think you’re mistaken,” Neb said. “I think perhaps he wants to parley with Petron-Petros, our leader.”
“No,” the scout said, moving away again. “No mistake. You are Nebios, son of Hebda, who watched the Great Extinguishment of Light, the Desolation of Windwir?”
Neb swallowed the sudden fear in this throat and nodded.
“My king would speak with you.” Now the voice grew more distant, and Neb looked back to camp once again.
Then, turning north, he ran after the Marsh King’s ghostly messenger.
Chapter 19
Rudolfo
Rudolfo and his party made their last camp together twenty leagues northwest of Windwir. In the morning, they would split up. He would ride with his escort to meet Gregoric and his company of Gypsy Scouts well beyond sight of the armies encamped around Windwir. While he turned southeast, Jin Li Tam and Isaak would ride northeast with their escort and make for the Prairie Sea with all haste.
A cold rain fell as the sky shifted to twilight, and the sun slipped below.
They huddled beneath canvas tarps hung low, using the pine trees as natural cover as much as possible. Rudolfo looked at Isaak, the rain beading and rolling off his metal surface.
“You’ll not rust, will you?”
“The alloy composite of my chassis is resistant to rust and other forms of erosion, Lord Rudolfo,” the metal man said.
Rudolfo nodded. “Well enough.” He leaned against the tree. A few paces away, he watched Jin Li Tam lay out a tent and pull it together and up with the practiced skill of a soldier. He watched her as she worked, enjoying the places where the water clung to her clothing, accentuating her curves. “I want to speak with you about the work ahead,” he told Isaak, his voice dropping.
“Yes, Lord Rudolfo?”
“I’ve asked Lady Tam to assist you. She will speak to her father on behalf of the library and try to get sanction from this new Pope he spoke of.” Rudolfo turned from watching her and studied Isaak. “I will get you more help as soon as I possibly can. Meanwhile, start planning.”
The metal man’s head swiveled around to face him. “Have you given any thought to the location of the new library?”
Rudolfo thought about this. “There is a hill near the seventh forest manor-on the outskirts of town. I had intended it to be a Whymer Maze. Is it of sufficient size?”
Isaak’s eyes flashed bright and then dim, the shutters working quickly as he calculated. “If we build into the hill and above it.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Once we have secured the patriarchal blessing, I will hire the best architects, engineers and builders in the Named Lands to realize this vision. I will hire the carpenters of Paramo to design and build the furnishings required. Your role will be to tell us what we need to properly house the holdings you think can be restored.”
Steam chugged out of his exhaust grate. “Your faith in me continues to astound, Lord Rudolfo.”
“You are a marvelous wonder, Isaak. You may even be the very best of the Androfrancines’ work among us.”
Certainly the most dangerous and the most innocent at the same time, he thought.»thom'
“I will strive to exceed your expectations.”
Rudolfo smiled. “I have no doubt that you will.”
“I had started my preliminary research before the summons arrived. I will resume that work now, by your leave.”
Rudolfo nodded. “To your work, my metal friend.”
Isaak limped off and Rudolfo watched him as he went. His armorer had done the best he could, certainly, never having worked on a mechanical before. Perhaps he could do better for the metal man with enough time to properly study his musculature and metallic skeleton. Maybe as they cataloged what was left in the memory scrolls of the mechoservitor corps, they would even find the ancient drawings from Rufello and have done with that limp.
Part of him wondered, though, if Isaak would permit that or if he would bear the limp along with his great remorse, a constant reminder of a pain that defined him.
Rudolfo had talked with Jin Li Tam about the metal man’s lie. It was an interesting development in the mechoservitor’s character.
That night, as the coyotes howled beyond their camp, they ate cold rations and washed them down with colder wine. They talked briefly, voices low, about the next day and the work ahead.
“I’ll see to the Marsh King and plumb this sudden kin-clave he’s declared towards me,” Rudolfo said. “I’ll send word when I know. Until then, the Wandering Army stays at home. We need to see what this new Pope will mean for present loyalties.”
Jin nodded. “I think Queen Meirov is tenuous at best in her alliance with Sethbert. He’s not been a good neighbor to her people.”
Rudolfo stroked his mustache. “She is a strong queen with a weak army.” Pylos, the smallest of the Named Lands, used their army primarily to police the border they shared with the Entrolusian City States. He’d had kin- clave with her in the past. “Perhaps I will call upon her after I’ve parleyed with the Marsh King.”
“My father will also send word to her,” Jin said. “She relies on House Li Tam for her small fleet of river ships, and no small amount of her treasury is held with him as well.”
Rudolfo smiled. “What do you think your father will do about the City State» thht=s?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I’m sure he’ll follow this new Pope’s lead. He can put the blockade back in place in a matter of days.”
And in two weeks, Rudolfo knew, those iron ships-powered in some similar way to the Androfrancines’ metal men but on a much larger scale-could cripple the supplies and replacements that Sethbert relied on his wooden riverboats to deliver.
