Antiphon (29 page)

Jin Li Tam blinked. “You want me to kill him?”

Ria nodded. “Of course. He participated in a plot to murder your family.” She bent over him, stroking his bloody cheek. “You’re ready, yes, Jarvis?”

“I am ready, my queen.”

Again, Ria extended the blade, and Jin Li Tam understood the intersection she now faced. The choice she made here had significance beyond her feelings, and she willed herself to be, just for this moment, her father’s daughter. This was a test, an opportunity to build trust.

Do not think. Do what must be done.
Jin hesitated, then took the knife. She turned and bent over him. “You should not have tried to harm my family,” she said in a low voice.

Then she did what needed doing.

When she was finished, she washed his blood from her hands in a silver basin they brought to her. She did so with her back turned and swallowed at the tears that threatened her.

Putting her coat back on, she followed Ria back to the lodge in silence, and when she took Jakob from Lynnae’s arms, she crushed him to herself and stifled her sob in his blankets.

We are all mortified by our sins from time to time,
she thought.

Rudolfo paced the command tent and tried to force his anger into something he could manage. Outside, a break in the snow gave shivering recruits time to establish their somewhat more permanent quarters with timber felled by a group of loggers arrived out of Paramo, seat of the Third Forest Manor. It wasn’t optimal work for the front end of winter, but Lysias had maintained that war did not wait for weather and neither should an army in training. So now, the sounds of saws and hammers filled the morning air.

And now, the last major wagonload of supplies from the Seventh Forest Manor was arriving. Future supplies would trickle in much more slowly now, though already crews of recruits were dispatched to drag heavy plows over the wagon trails to try to keep them clear.

Rudolfo stopped his pacing and forced himself to breathe.

It had been bad enough sending his wife and child into Ria’s lands. Now he had word from Charles that he and Isaak made their way north with that last wagon train to follow the mechoservitors into the ground, and the thought that the most lethal weapon in the known world might stroll casually into Ria’s hands raised a panic in him that his mind could only translate into rage.

I cannot let him leave.
Isaak carried Y’Zir’s Seven Cacophonic Deaths in his memory scrolls—a weapon that could leave the Named Lands
desolate if the wrong hands were to lay hold of that spell. For Isaak to so suddenly and without a word make this decision and abandon his work in the library was an ambush Rudolfo had not expected, and everything within him whistled third alarm to this new development. And yet, how could Rudolfo stop his friend?

By forbidding it,
he thought.

He heard footsteps approaching and listened for the low whistle at his tent flap. When it came, he returned it and a breathless lieutenant entered. “The caravan is here, General.”

Rudolfo nodded. “Very well. Send Charles in first once they’ve been assigned quarters.”

He forced himself to sit at his cluttered table, forced himself to sip at the lukewarm firespice that he’d barely touched, feeling the heat of it as it traced its way down his throat and into his stomach. He’d found himself spending more time with the stronger liquor of late, less interested in the fruit wines that had been his preference for so long before. He told himself it was the cold, but he knew it wasn’t. It was the dulling of an edge that had become too sharp for him, and an easy way to find sleep at the end of a long day spent worrying.

He reread Jin’s coded message about the bird station and what they had gathered so far about the conspiracy on the Delta. He’d conferred with Lysias about the man Jarvis, and saw with little surprise that there was no love lost between them.

“He was ever of questionable character,” Lysias had told him. “Choosing his loyalties based on the size of one’s letter of credit.”

It was a solid lead in the investigation, but he found himself wondering how deep and wide the conspiracy went and whether or not that weed could be dug out. Of course, his own garden was choked as well. They’d not found more shrines, and though his scouts carefully watched the one nearby, there had been no further activity there since his visit. His borders were breached to the west by evangelists, to the east by magicked runners he still couldn’t find and to the south by this latest development.

He moved papers about for the better part of an hour, his eyes burning from lack of sleep and the words all blurring together into one that he finally spoke aloud. “Why?”

Just as he asked it, the lieutenant was back with Charles. Rudolfo looked at the man and saw his own weariness reflected back in the arch-engineer’s face and eyes. He gestured to a chair. “Please sit,” he said.

“Thank you, Lord Rudolfo.” Charles sat, and the officer who escorted him slipped back out of the tent.

Even his voice sounds tired.
Rudolfo pointed to the bottle of firespice. “It’s been a cold ride north, I’m sure,” he said. “Would you like a drink?”

Charles surprised him by accepting, and Rudolfo poured a small metal cup half full of the thick, spice-scented liquor. The old man raised his and Rudolfo followed.

“To brighter times,” the old man offered.

“To brighter times,” Rudolfo repeated.

They sipped, and the Gypsy King forced himself to wait quietly. Finally, he could wait no longer. “What in the Hidden Hells is happening, Charles?”

Charles blinked, and Rudolfo registered the surprise on his face at the sudden and uncharacteristic outburst. “You mean with Isaak?”

“Yes,” Rudolfo said. “With Isaak.”

Charles sighed. “I am not certain.”

Rudolfo leaned forward, feeling the small table bend beneath his weight. “You
made
him. Surely you have some speculation? He’s left the library in the care of the others and intends
what
exactly? And why?”

Charles paled, and Rudolfo was pleased that his tone induced such a response. “He intends to follow the other mechoservitors into the Machtvolk Territories. He is deciphering their dream along with notes hidden in Tertius’s volume on the Marshfolk prophecies.”

The dream.
He’d heard reference to it that night in the forest when the four mechoservitors had approached seeking safe passage. He’d heard other references as well. That it was coded into a song—one he actually sang to his infant son, one his own mother had sung to him and his brother when they were very young. “How did he come by this dream?”

He knew the answer already but wanted to hear it from Charles directly. The man made no excuse and no attempt to cover the truth. “I installed it in him after the explosion at the library.”

Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you do this without discussion with me?”

Charles raised his eyebrows. “I was not aware that discussion was required, Lord.”

“He is the most dangerous weapon in the world,” Rudolfo said in a low voice that betrayed his anger.
And he is my friend,
he didn’t say. “I have strong interest in his safety.”

“As do I,” Charles answered.

Rudolfo continued, feeling the interruption in the tingling of his scalp. “Anything that might alter his normal functions is of concern to me. I should have been consulted on this decision. Ultimately, I am responsible for him as the inheritor of the Order’s holdings and the Guardian of Windwir.”

Charles inclined his head. “I would argue that ultimately
I
am responsible for him as the one who made him. But arguing this point would be fruitless. I failed to consult you; I intended no disrespect by this.”

Rudolfo did not expect his fist to come up and then down upon the table. When it did, they were both surprised at the resounding noise of it. “Damnation,” he shouted. “This is not about
respect
. He carries the Seven Cacophonic Deaths of Xhum Y’Zir within him, and now this dream that has worked its way into your mechanicals at Sanctorum Lux has worked its way into him.” He felt the anger in his scalp again and forced himself to breathe in and out before continuing. “The others exhibited strange behavior as a result of this dream. Now he is, too. That library has been his home for nearly two years, and the work there has been his very soul.”

“People,” Charles said slowly, “often change direction.”

Rudolfo opened his mouth to say Isaak was a machine, that he wasn’t a person, but even as he started to speak, he knew it wasn’t true. He’d seen Isaak as a person from the very first day he met the sobbing metal man. He’d dressed him in robes. He’d given him a name. He’d welcomed him into his family.

He is my friend.

He remembered the anxious days waiting for Charles to finally declare him functional again. He recalled vividly the sense of overwhelming relief when he’d learned the metal man had somehow absorbed the worst of the bomb blast, shielding his wife and son from an explosion that would have surely killed and buried them without the metal man’s intervention.

Rudolfo sighed and forced himself to make eye contact with the old man. In those brown eyes, he saw the same two things that hid behind his anger: fear and love.

Charles stared back and let the silence hang heavy for a full minute before speaking. “I apologize for not discussing this with you, Lord Rudolfo. He asked for this dream, and under the circumstances, I felt
it was my duty to grant his request and protect his privacy. I do not know what this dream is up to, but my surest path to discovery is to monitor him—and the others—and learn what I can.”

Rudolfo studied the man, trying to keep hold of his anger, but already he felt it leaking away from him. He sighed, and it was loud in the tent. “You intend to go with him, then?”

Charles nodded. “I do,” he said. “Though I hope we will be back soon. I’m too old to be chasing after metal dreams.”

Rudolfo sighed again. “Very well.” He looked up and whistled. The scout guarding his tent poked his head in. “Send Isaak in.”

When the metal man walked in, Rudolfo noticed the change in him immediately. He carried himself differently, and when he spoke, his voice was also different—more sure and less accommodating. “Lord Rudolfo,” he said as he inclined his metal head.

It is confidence.
Rudolfo returned the slight nod. “Isaak.”

“I fear,” his metal friend said, “that I must take my leave of you. I am grateful for your hospitality and have been honored to serve you and your family.”

Rudolfo thought there would be more conversation. That perhaps they would discuss this dream and what it meant and where exactly he went and how exactly he would help his cousins in their response to it. He thought they’d talk and find some kind of compromise. But in the end, he simply looked into Isaak’s amber eyes. “You know what you guard, Isaak,” Rudolfo said. “Do what you will—but guard yourself well, my friend.”

He thought that Isaak would hang his head or that he’d see some spark of grief in the guttering light of those jeweled eyes. But Isaak returned his gaze levelly. “I will always be vigilant, Lord Rudolfo.”

Rudolfo nodded. “Very well, then,” he said.

He offered no word of dismissal. He simply went back to the papers on his desk until the two left his tent. After they had gone, Rudolfo sighed again and called for the captain of the watch.

“Magick a half-squad,” he told the officer. “Follow them. Quietly.”

And only after he was alone again, Rudolfo held his head in his hands and wondered at how quickly such fierce anger could burn itself into sorrow and despair.

Neb swam in pain and tried to find some part of himself that he could cling to as the fire laced his body and his mind lurched from scene to scene.

“Where are they, Abomination?” the woman asked as she traced another cut into his skin with her salted knife. She leaned over him, touching her own small, dark carving to his bloody skin.

He was in a room now, and he recognized it as the one he’d seen Winters undressing in. Now, he stood behind her as she wrote at a small desk, her hand moving across the pages. The knife moved over his skin, and she spun away.

Neb screamed.

A new face swam into his view—one he’d not seen for some time, and it reminded him of the words his dead father had told him what seemed so long ago, before the knives, before the crooning voice and the cold, black stone kin-raven pressed against his skin. It was Petronus.

Petronus rides to you.

“Neb?” The old Pope looked even older now. He’d lost weight, and now he wore trousers and a shirt that was far too big for him. A vicious pink scar ran along his throat, and his hair and beard had become a tangled, unruly mess. “Neb, can you hear me?”

He felt the woman near him now, too, and he quickly averted his eyes, careful not to take in any of the landscape. “Don’t let them find you, Father,” he said.

And then, the knife was to its work again and he was back to screaming as Petronus also spun away.

“Do not show them what they want to see, son,” his father, Brother Hebda said. Suddenly, they were in the park near the Whymer orphanage where he had spent his childhood, there in the shadow of the Great Library and the Androfrancine Order. A summer breeze bent the birch branches.