Antiphon

Rudolfo looked to his metal friend. “They picked a forlorn and miserable night for this,” he said.

Isaak started, his gears whirring and clacking. His head swiveled, and when he spoke, his voice sounded distracted and far away. “I apologize for this inconvenience, Lord Rudolfo.”

Rudolfo chuckled. “No apology required, Isaak. It is what it is.” And what it is, is damned curious, he told himself.

The moon sparrow had returned not long after Isaak’s functionality had been restored, urging them north under cover of darkness and storm. Somehow, these metal emissaries had crossed the Keeper’s Wall to arrive in his Ninefold Forest, yet they had not passed through the gate his Gypsy Scouts now manned there. The foresters had worked out a new code and retrained a new batch of birds just for these communications, and they sat unused in their coops. “Still, I wonder what they’re up to.”

Isaak said nothing, and Rudolfo looked beyond him to Charles. The old man met his eyes for a moment, and Rudolfo read something there that he could not quite place. He knew when the arch-engineer quickly broke eye contact that something indeed was amiss. He knows something that he is not telling.

Looking back to Isaak, he opened his mouth to speak again, then closed it when Philemus spoke. “They are ahead. Four of them, robed and waiting. Scouts have secured a perimeter around them.”

Rudolfo nodded. “Very well. Hold here unless we whistle for you.”

“Aye, General,” the second captain said.

Then Rudolfo looked to Isaak. “Are you ready?”

Isaak nodded slowly but said nothing.

Rudolfo nudged his horse forward at a walk, and the two followed. The forest around them was alive with the rainfall, and a shrouded moon offered no light between the clouds and the thick evergreen canopy. They rode forward in darkness until Rudolfo saw the amber lights ahead. When he did, he slipped from his saddle and led his stallion into the small clearing.

The four stood together, side by side, and steam rose from the heat of them. They’d run far, he realized, and yet had somehow circumnavigated the only pass across the impenetrable Keeper’s Wall. Rudolfo waited until Isaak and Charles were beside him, and then he stepped forward. “Greetings,” he said, “I am Rudolfo, lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses, general of the Wandering Army.”

One of the mechoservitors broke ranks with the others and raised his hand. “Well met, Lord Rudolfo.” The metal man looked to Isaak next. “Greetings, cousin.” Then, last, he looked to Charles. “Father,” he said, inclining his head.

Charles grunted and returned the nod.

As his eyes adjusted to the night, Rudolfo saw the differences between these mechoservitors and Isaak. They were more boxlike, with harder right angles, and copper in color.

Isaak inclined his head. “Greetings, cousin.”

“Do you serve the light?” the mechoservitor asked.

Isaak nodded. “I serve the light,” he said. Then, he looked to Rudolfo. “And I serve this man and his family.”

The mechoservitor’s voice lowered. “Do you yet comprehend the dream?”

The dream? Rudolfo glanced at Charles. The old man looked away, and Rudolfo noted the question that required asking once they finished here. He would ask Isaak first, of course, out of courtesy for his friend.

Isaak’s eye shutters flashed, and his voice took on a heaviness that sounded so unlike the metal man that Rudolfo found himself blinking. “I do not comprehend it,” he said. “But I know that it requires a response.”

“Yes.”

Another mechoservitor stepped forward. “Even now the antiphon is being shaped. We are here to aid that work.”

Rudolfo was not familiar with the word and set it aside for later conversation. “Return with us to my manor,” he said, “and we will discuss this aid.”

The mechoservitor looked at him, and Rudolfo saw something in those eyes, in the way the metal man held his head, that spilled uneasiness into him like ink in a pond. “Do you serve the light?”

Rudolfo cocked his head. “I do. I am restoring what I can of it by-”

There was gravity in the mechoservitor’s tone when he interrupted. “The dream has shown us that the light cannot be truly preserved in a building of stone and wood. Your aid is not required.” He looked to Isaak. “You have tasted the dream and we have come for you, cousin. Join us.”

Rudolfo held his breath. He had not foreseen this, and judging by the look on Charles’s face, the old arch- engineer had not expected it either. They both stared at Isaak.

Isaak’s eyes flashed, bright and then dim, as his working parts clacked and whirred with this new information. “I cannot join you,” Isaak said. Rudolfo heard the sadness in his friend’s voice. “I have work to accomplish here.”

Another of the four stepped forward, repeating the other’s words. “The light cannot be truly preserved in a building of stone and wood, cousin. You of all our kind should comprehend this fully.”

Rudolfo started. They know of his role in Windwir.

A gout of steam burst from Isaak’s exhaust grate, and his metal plating rattled. “I cannot join you, but I will aid you as I can.” The metal man looked to Rudolfo, and he thought for a moment he heard pleading in his voice. “I believe Lord Rudolfo will aid you as well if you will be forthright with him.”

More trust. And Rudolfo had no reason to offer it. Yet.

The last mechoservitor joined them now. “We run for the Marshlands to search the Book of Dreaming Kings.” He looked to Rudolfo and repeated his companion’s words. “Your aid is not required.”

Rudolfo felt his frustration building and wrestled it down. “You are in my forests,” he said in a low and even tone. “You may not wish my aid, but you should still desire my grace.”

The mechoservitor’s eye shutters flashed open and closed. “We will not long be in your forests and require only such grace as will let us pass in peace and secrecy.”

Rudolfo looked to Isaak and Charles again. “And you think the Machtvolk queen will grant you access to her book?”

“We will not seek access from her.” The mechoservitor dug into his robes, and Rudolfo felt wind nearby as his scouts drew closer. He whistled them to stand down as the mechanical pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle and passed it to Isaak. “Should we fail,” the mechoservitor said, “our task will fall to you or the antiphon will be incomplete.”

Isaak took the bundle and looked at it.

“It is the only existing copy,” the mechoservitor said, “and it should remain so.”

The first mechoservitor spoke to Isaak now, even as Rudolfo opened his own mouth to speak. “If you change your mind the book will bring you to us, cousin. It is glorious to serve the light by way of the dream. We beseech you to reconsider and take your part in formulating the antiphon. We will not send for you again.”

Isaak said nothing. And before Rudolfo could find his own words, the mechoservitors turned and sped from the clearing.

Follow them, he signed to the scouts surrounding them. At a distance, but do not breach the Machtvolk border.

He heard the faintest clicking of tongues to the roofs of mouths as the scouts set out. As they left, he looked to Charles and Isaak. “It seems we have much to discuss,” Rudolfo said.

Isaak nodded absently, carefully unwrapping the book while shielding it from the rain with his cloak. It was an old volume, one that had somehow been spared the destruction of the Great Library.

“What book is it?” Charles asked, leaning in.

Isaak read the cover. “It is Tertius’s Exegesis of Select Lunar Prophecies As Recorded in the Book of Dreaming Kings.

As if on cue, the rain around them let up as high winds pushed back the clouds enough to leak the moon’s blue-green light over the clearing. In the distance, Rudolfo heard the fading clack and clank of the metal men as they ran west, but the metal man before him captured all his attention.

Isaak looked at the book and then raised his amber jeweled eyes as if in prayer. “It requires a response,”