Antiphon

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