Antiphon

She stretched up a hand to check the knife hilts that peeked out from beneath her pillow. They seemed much more likely than dreams or boys when it came to taking back her land. She’d even found herself considering whether or not she could slip one of those blades between the ribs of her older sister and take back by force what she had lost by apathy. But the moment that violent thought intruded, her stomach clenched and recoiled at the thought of it.

What would Jin Li Tam think of that? she wondered. She knew the woman was capable of killing. They’d danced with the knives each morning, and surely the movements of body and blades could be taught. Already, she felt competent. But could that redheaded courtesan spy turned Gypsy Queen and mother teach Winters how to kill?

It is not who I am. But maybe, she thought, it is who I need to be.

She forced her mind back into the gospel.

And in those days the birds of the sky shall betray and the darkness that masquerades as light shall be fully illuminated by the grace of House Y’Zir. The Usurper’s city will become a pyre and the Machtvolk will rise from their ashes and mud to make straight a path for the Crimson Empress’s advent. She thumbed the pages forward now, finding a less familiar passage. And behold, I saw those dwelling in the Beneath Places and heard these making their bargain with devils. Weeping, I watched them summon forth their abomination to damn and desolate the children of men by a song. And I wept not because of the sorrow of this, but because of the grace of the Crimson Empress, for even in this, she would prevail in joy, and heal our broken home.

She read it again, drawn in by the power of the words. She’d read as many books as she could get her hands on-Tertius had been particularly good at smuggling them in. She’d read most of P’Andro Whym’s gospels, but his were not so dressed in imagery, parable and prophecy. They were mostly admonitions and stories around the preservation of human knowledge and learning from the mistakes of the past.

But these writings, unlike the reason-based words of the Androfrancines, were not so very different from her own Book of Dreaming Kings, and she knew that this similarity was at least a part of its appeal among those of her people who now believed it. It was specific enough to give something of substance to cling to, yet vague enough to allow for varied interpretations.

And unlike the Book of Dreaming Kings, this gospel was something every family could sit with near the fire, read on a winter’s night and feel a part of.

Closing the book, she climbed out of her bed and put it on the shelf as far from her as the room allowed. She couldn’t bear to keep it any closer. Then, she settled back into the bed, savoring its warmth in the cool room. She dimmed the lantern and gave herself to rehearsing the steps of tomorrow’s knife dance. She’d moved through the dervish twice and started on a third, mentally noting each place she’d put her feet in the muddy snow, trying to block out the book.

When the dream fell upon her after so long away, it jarred her and she blinked at the suddenness of it. Sitting up in her Wicker Throne, she savored the sunlight that somehow found her and bathed her here in her subterranean throne room.

She felt a presence and spoke to it. “Neb?”

The only answer was the faint sound of clicking and clacking that drifted up to her from the tunnels behind her. Rising, she gripped the Firstfall axe tightly in her fists, wishing instead for scout knives, and made her way toward that sound.

Winters descended into the caves, passing her sleeping and bathing areas as she wound her way to the leagues-long cavern where she’d spent most of her life before leaving for the war two years earlier. As she drew closer, she heard the sound of a harp and for a moment recalled another dream from months before. She looked in the sitting area and was not surprised to see Tertius sitting there, his fingers moving over the strings and filling the room with music. The last time she’d seen him in this place, the Book of Dreaming Kings was burning as it was consumed by the light. This time, the dream was different.

Four robed figures stood facing the shelves of volumes that lined the walls, and she watched as metal hands moved quickly over the volumes, pulling down one here and one there. The clacking and clicking was louder, now, and punctuated by massive gouts of steam that burst from vents in their metal backs. And whatever books they pulled down did not get replaced, leaving gaps on the shelves, sockets empty of their teeth. She stepped toward them.

“Careful,” Tertius warned her, picking up the tempo of his song upon the harp. “They will consume you, too, my queen.”

She looked back to him but could not heed his warning. Instead, she stepped even closer and saw more clearly what they did.

Raising the volumes to their metal mouths, they bit into them with sharpened teeth and chewed the paper down, devouring the volumes as quickly as they could.

Her own voice startled her as she reached out a hand, laying it upon a wool-clad shoulder that was warm to her touch. “No,” she cried.

The metal man turned on her, quickly, a free hand suddenly flashing up to grab her wrist even as its eyes went bright yellow with alarm. “You do not belong here.” It looked to its neighbor. “The tamp is not holding.”

“We knew that it might not,” the other said. “Their very blood conducts the dream.”

“We may be seen,” another ventured.

All around her, the song swelled to a crescendo, and she struggled to look back toward Tertius and his harp, only now she could not see him. The metal men crowded her, their mouths opening and closing, no longer seeking the dream on paper as they instead sought it from her flesh.

As those mouths descended upon her, she heard a great shriek and knew that it was she who made it. She felt the teeth grinding over her skin, felt the hungry hands grabbing to hold her still that they might bite into her. She tried to raise the Firstfall axe in her hands, tried to swing it at the metal men, and suddenly there was another presence with her in this room.

“Neb?” she asked again.

“Peace, Winteria,” a voice whispered to her. “The dream tamp is merely failing. And as it is with dreams, this one is not as it appears.”

The metal men continued to crowd her, and she fell down to her knees beneath the weight of them. Beyond them, she saw wet bare feet that stood in silver puddles near where Tertius had played. Now, though, the harpist and his song had suddenly vanished. She felt a sob shudder out of her. “Who are you? Why won’t you help me?”

She wished she could see the man’s face as he spoke, but already her eyes were closing involuntarily against the sudden pain she felt as their teeth rent and sundered her. “I cannot help,” the man said. “I can only observe. But you can help yourself. Give yourself back to the dream, child.”

I do not know how, she tried to say but couldn’t.

As if hearing, he answered her. “Give yourself to it. Lay down your axe.”

Taking a deep breath, she forced her hands to release the axe and gave herself over to their grabbing hands and biting teeth. She made herself breathe through it and felt the pain become a cool breeze scented with unfamiliar flowers and warm, salted air.

And suddenly, the hands and mouths were gone from her and she stood with a dozen mechoservitors-no, she realized, at least two dozen, maybe even an army of them-upon a massive white tower overlooking a blue-green ocean so clear that it hurt her eyes. Above her, a brown moon filled the sky far larger than any moon could be, and she remembered it from her dreams.

This is our home, she remembered telling Neb where they lay naked and sweating in an open-air bed that showed them that great moon.

All around her, the song rang out and the mechoservitors danced in time to it, forming a great circle that turned around her.

“It requires a response,” they sang in unison.

It was the sound of that great metal choir that jarred her from her sleep and caused her to sit bolt upright in her bed.

Weeping, Winters did what she’d done with every dream she’d ever remembered for as far back as she had