The Machine God (The Drifting Isle Chronicles) Page 13

  "This was a lady you liked?" said Adewole.

  "Oh she ain't no lady, Ollie, how funny you are, she's a stallkeeper. Course I like her. She's nice to me."

  "She boxed your ears."

  "Pfft. That ain't nothin'," said Alleine in scorn. "I had much worse than boxed ears. Stars keep me if I couldn't bear a boxed ear. No one ever boxed your ears? You never boxed your sister's ears?"

  "I would have boxed the ears of anyone who hurt my sister," said Adewole, "and no one should ever have laid a hand on you in anger, either."

  Alleine fell silent for so long Adewole wondered if she'd run out of ichor at last, until she began again. "But I spose Maria Kyper's dead, huh? I can't really figure it, their all bein' dead."

  "I am afraid so, my dear," said Adewole, trying to keep her thoughts more cheerful for the moment. "Tell me now, what else did they sell in the marketplace, and how big was the place?"

  Alleine prattled on about dresses in soft cottons and warm wools she wished she could have bought for her Mam, tin lanterns, copper pots, bright carpets from Dumastra--Cherholtz knew of far-off Dumastra but not of Jero. Always she returned to the food: sweet pickles from great big barrels, sausages wrapped in flat bread, little grilled river fish on sticks, roasted chickpeas in paper cones. "Sometimes at end of day a stallkeeper'll gives me a leftover fish or somethin', especially if it's burnt. Usually they just kick at me, but that's all right, I'm faster'n they are," she said cheerfully. "And when they don't miss, well, it's worth the askin'. Some days that's all there is to eat. I never ask the sausage man, though. Once he held out a sausage and then he took it away and fed it to his dog right in front of me. Never ast him again, the bastard. Oh, I'm sorry, Ollie, I shouldn'a said that word."

  "Never mind, child, go on," he said, smiling into his notebook as he wrote.

  She said the marketplace went on for miles and miles; scaling down for a young child's eyes and from other clues, Adewole estimated it must have taken up Risenton's large market square and at least three adjacent ones just as big, now vanished under the improvised housing built after the Rising. From her description, Adewole figured Cherholtz must have boasted at least 100,000 people in a city spilling out from walls near what was now the Great Road. She told him about running through the city sometimes in a pack of neglected children--workers and servants like herself, beggars, thieves, and the unluckiest who hid in alleyways and shadowy doors, selling themselves for coins to take back to whoever sent them out. "Least I never had to do that," she shuddered. The sewage now composted and used in the fields had run through deep gutters carved down the middle of Cherholtz's streets into the river, and she said the children sometimes made little boats of paper scraps or nutshells and ran after them, dodging horses and barrowmen, as the tiny craft floated down the chutes to the river. All of it she described as if the bustle, noise and smells were just outside the Library.

  "It sounds like Cherholtz was a horrible place," said Adewole, imagining his own sister running ragged through dirty streets.

  "Naw, it's grand! I like it." She sighed. "Then step-da decided I ate more than I brought in, so he sold me to Master Vatterbroch. He paid step-da ten solidis for me, and told me he overpaid. He probly did."

  "People are not to be bought and sold," said Adewole. "Were there slaves in Cherholtz?"

  "Slaves? Naw. I was sposed to be a house servant or some such. Step-da got paid for the loss of my work, or so he told Master, but I weren't no slave. Once I got to be eighteen, I coulda left. Woulda. I guess I don't get to be eighteen, huh?" Her sudden silence wrung his heart. "Well," she resumed, "wishing don't change nothin', like you said yesterday. I told you, now you tell me what Cherholtz is like now. Are the Gates still there? I never been past 'em. Kolbsgate is in the north and all covered in pink marble, and Eichelgate is in the south and all covered in green marble. You seen 'em?"

  "They are still there, and are still called Kolbsgate and Eichelgate. The Kolbs and the Eichels are important families. Neither gate is covered in marble any more, though the marble facing Councilman Eichel's townhouse is suspiciously green. The city walls are gone as well. A road rings the island where it once stood, and I am sure it is paved with the wall's stones."

  "You talk about this island," said Alleine, "what's it like?"

  Adewole described how the city had crumbled into farmland, the people had dwindled to a few thousand, and no one sold bright ribbons in the marketplace any longer. "They sell little oaten sweet cakes topped with jam, though, and people eat the big beetles you made."

  "People? I made those for the birds."

  "Even so, the people here are often very hungry, and they eat what they can catch."

  Alleine made a snuffling sound. "I didn't want to hurt anyone, but it sounds like I did. I don't like hurting people, at all. I couldn't even hurt Master Vatterbroch, and I hate him. I'm not sad he's dead but I'm sad he died from something I did. Was any city left down below?"

  Adewole considered what to tell her. Now and again, workers digging a basement for a new building near Lake Sherrat would find ruins and artifacts; anthropologists and historians would get a brief chance to sift through the rubble, and then it would be covered once again in concrete and stone. All evidence pointed to a devastating, overnight collapse; no books or papers had been found, not even an inscription on a wall, and few stones stood one on top of the other. Scorch marks found on almost every artifact suggested whatever city had surrounded Lake Sherrat had burned to the ground in one cataclysmic event. When Alleine raised Cherholtz, she'd destroyed what was left behind as well.

  He settled on a story. "The river filled the hole you left. We call it Lake Sherrat now. It is quite beautiful. I take water taxis across it now and again when I can afford to. A new city has spread from its shores, called Eisenstadt."

  "It sounds pretty."

  "Pretty?" Adewole considered the cold city's geometric lines spreading out from Lake Sherrat, the clinical precision of the buildings and their oddly contrasting, lavishly decorated interiors. He'd come to recognize the beauty of such precision in the University of Eisenstadt campus and the soaring vault of the acoustically perfect Opera House, but otherwise he found Eisenstadt gray and unwelcoming, especially compared to Jero's warm, ancient, gracefully meandering streets and colorful buildings. "To some eyes it is beautiful. To mine, it lacks a certain something. I hear Mr. Buckan outside, I must put you in my satchel before he comes in."

  "Tell me first, Ollie, have you found a way to help me yet?"

  "No." He had hoped she'd forget, even while knowing she could not. "That is one reason I must stop talking now. I must begin translating the spells today. If I find something helpful, I shall tell you. Speak quietly, now, and when I say hush, hush."

  Adewole pulled the manuscript toward him. He didn't hold out much hope of finding a spell to ease the girl's pain--Vatterbroch had no regard for anyone but himself--but he might find one to release her spirit from the heart. If he did so, he was sure she would die. How could he kill a child? A craven voice deeper still added, how can you kill such a valuable historic resource?

  But Alleine was already dead, a waking death but a death nonetheless. She had no body to return to, nothing but a never-ending, tortured imprisonment and the fear the Machine God might be resurrected. Once the ichor wore out she might sleep through eternity, but like any sleeper she dreamed, and like any dreamer, she might be awakened again. Ending what life she had would be a mercy, if it came to it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Risenton, Oktober 5th

  Adewole put on his spectacles and opened the notebook to the addendum containing Vatterbroch's spells--the section he'd had trouble believing before Alleine, and so had left until the end. As he worked, he rewrote the mixed runic style into the standard script used in Old Rhendalian, adding diacritical marks denoting different pronunciations. He'd explain them in an appendix--if he ever published. This was not the usual scholarly project. Occasional murmurs came from the little spirit
in his satchel, and he reassured her in the same low tone. It was rather comforting in a way; his sister Ofira used to interrupt him as he worked.

  First he looked at the music for the incantations. Its notation sprang from the same source as Dumastran music; a modern musician, unless specially trained, would be hard-pressed to follow it. He hummed a few lines, thought better of it, and returned to the spells themselves.

  He translated the first few initially for their raw sense; their meter and rhyme would come later. The first one powered the Bone Lyre. In part it ran:

  Let the first sound be the screams

  Of the one this Lyre seeks to command

  Let its skull become the means

  By which the sound commands it

  The sinews vibrate and make strings of sound

  To pull its puppet limbs as I command them...

  By the time he finished, Adewole's fingers shook, and bitterness filled his mouth.

  He found spells to forge the metal for the Machine God's body, spells to bind the pieces one to the other using a specially infused ichor, and the spell to bind the "subject's" spirit to the Machine God's heart:

  Let the life now leaving this body

  Find a new undying home

  There to dwell in power forever

  Or until I give it leave to go...

  So. The spell was reversible, or so it implied.

  Adewole thumbed quickly through the notebook, reading just the beginning lines; the incantation to bind the heart to the body took up pages. There, in the final spell, Adewole found the answer. "When it comes time," wrote Vatterbroch, "when I have proven my work with this subject and all is ready, then I shall dismiss its flawed spirit and substitute my own. Then I will live and rule forever. No Bone Lyre will compel me, and the world shall worship its new God."

  "Dissolve in darkness," the spell began:

  I send you, spirit, to the Star City

  Or to the Black Spring as the old gods decree

  And take the power of this new god I have made

  To rule with might and magic

  Until time itself runs out and beyond…

  Adewole did not like the sound of it. The spell strongly intimated he himself would take Alleine's place inside the God; she would be free, but he would be trapped. Nevertheless, he made two copies of the spell and its music, blotted his work and folded one copy into his wallet. Of all the spells in the notebook, it was the one he wanted to be sure he had. If the manuscript was somehow lost, he might still be able to help Alleine.

  "What's wrong, Ollie?" she whispered.

  "Nothing, child, hush now, here comes Buckan."

  The door opened on silent hinges. Mr. Buckan strode in, and nearly jumped out of his shoes at the apparently unexpected sight of Adewole. "Stars above, Professor, you gave me a turn! What are you doing here so early?"

  Adewole consulted his watch. "It is eight o'clock. I have a great deal to do and I wished to get an early start. I am wondering, though, what you are doing here without me."

  "Ah, well," squirmed Buckan, "I am the librarian. I have a duty to ensure the books' safety. Councilwoman Lumburgher would have me whipped if something were to happen to them."

  "I believe you, but do you believe I am a danger to the books?" said Adewole.

  Buckan slid his eyes to one side, then conscientiously returned them to Adewole, an earnest expression on his face. "No, oh no, sir! But…well, you know the Councilwoman is touchy about them."

  Adewole removed his reading spectacles and steepled his fingers. Buckan was lying. "I am sorry to hear she has concerns. I shall see her this afternoon when I have finished my work for the day, so I may address her concerns directly."

  "No!--I mean, that's unnecessary, sir. I shall remind her you would never mistreat a book. We both know that. I shall go to her right now, I believe she's at City Hall."

  Buckan moved to let himself out, but Adewole stopped him. "In the meantime, Mr. Buckan, I would appreciate it if you did not come into this room unannounced or uninvited. Are we clear?"

  "Yes," nodded the little librarian. "I'll just go see to the Councilwoman now." He fled, almost slamming the door behind him. Adewole rose from his desk, crossed to the door and locked it. He would find his own latch soon and bolt the door further.

  "Is he gone?" whispered Alleine.

  "Yes, but stay quiet, my dear." Why would William Buckan come into the rare book room when he knew it would be empty? Imogen Lumburgher was an excuse; the cranky old Councilwoman and Adewole were on good terms, despite his questioning her about the Oath. He thought twice about keeping Alleine in the stacks, but decided she was safe. No one knew of her and so would not be searching, but his papers were vulnerable. Best keep them apart.

  It had been a long, hard day wrangling the ancient language and answering a dozen questions an hour from the bored girl in the cube, but Adewole could not rest until he was certain the room was secure. He waited until Buckan went home for the night, and left for the new, late-hours marketplace. He bought a sturdy, Eisenstadt-made lock and hasp, borrowed tools from the stallkeeper, and ran back to affix the lock to the doorframe. When he finished, he said his goodnights to Alleine and stumbled home, his translations and the manuscript stuffed in his satchel.

  Deviatka pressed him for the latest news on the Vatterbroch manuscript. "There is nothing to tell, truly, Karl," lied Adewole. "I am not finished with the translation, and it is as likely to be a fantasy or a religious treatise as some fantastical engineering project. I am following the manuscript's trails into related books--we have had to dig deep in the protected stacks, and even then many of the works referenced are missing. I presume they no longer exist--lost for all time, sadly."

  "Sad, indeed," said Deviatka, "but can you really tell me nothing more about the manuscript? You cannot share what you have done so far?"

  Just then, Wirtz buzzed in with the brandy tray, said goodnight, and left. Adewole shifted in his chair and poured himself a larger than usual glass. "Why are you so set on this, Karl?"

  "I worry Blessing might take your research from you--he will, if you're not careful."

  "I see nothing Dean Blessing might be interested in." Deviatka's gaze pierced him, and Adewole worked to stay still; he had never been good at falsehoods. "Well," he resumed, "what I have done so far makes little sense."

  "Let me be the judge of that."

  "No, in fact, I shall be the judge of it," Adewole snapped. His head ached. He'd spent too long squinting at his work; perhaps he needed stronger spectacles. "I am sorry, Karl. I am overly tired."

  "You've been getting up awfully early lately--before even me," smiled Deviatka.

  "Yes, I have. The work is quite absorbing."

  "You're wearing Wirtz out, he stumbles through my breakfast like a sleepwalker. All those hours and still no translation. How frustrating for you. Rather like a long walk in the woods to an ancient, mysterious destination, eh?"

  Adewole looked up, startled. Deviatka merely smiled again, innocent and placid. "Sometimes, very much like wandering in the woods," said Adewole.

  Once in his room, Adewole opened his sturdy old trunk at the foot of his bed and stowed the translations and Vatterbroch's notebook inside. He spun the combination lock, one he felt sure of; six numbers were not easily guessed.

  Early the next morning, Adewole decided not to work on the Vatterbroch manuscript that day. He deserved a palate cleanser. Today, he would spend time with Alleine and work on the novel. The few times he'd delved into it, he'd quite lost himself; the book possessed a delightful wealth of everyday details of life in Cherholtz. He left the Machine God notes in his trunk.

  Wirtz was still preparing his lunch when Adewole entered the converted stall, now their tiny kitchen. "I'm sorry, sir, Professor Deviatka got the first lunch I put together," said the corporal as he wrapped up sandwiches and slipped a bottle of lemonade into Adewole's basket.

  "Professor Deviatka? Is he up and gone already? That is rather unusual.
He likes to sleep later than this."

  "Not today. Now, you have a nice day, Professor, and don't forget to eat. I've had a nice set of clippers sent up from the ground and we'll attend to your hair tonight, eh?"

  When Adewole left the old stables lunch basket in hand, Ofira was waiting for him on a tree branch in the Freys' outer courtyard. "Everyone is out and about early today--though I suppose for you it is late," he said in greeting. She swiveled her head from side to side and then fixed him in a grave stare. "What is it, dear bird? More notions?"

  "Summat's wrong."

  "What?"

  "Dunno, but thass bad. Stay home."

  "I cannot stay home, Ofira, I have work to do."

  "Do it here."

  Adewole grimaced in exasperation, but Ofira's round amber eyes stared him down. She clacked her beak. "Someone is waiting for me," he said, "I must go."

  "Go do you mun but I go with you," said the owl. She took to the air in a slow sweep. "T'other learnèd 'un was out early."

  "Oh?" said Adewole. Something in the owl's nervousness quickened his step.

  "Owls got notions about that 'un."

  "Notions about Karl? What are you talking about?"

  "My daughters hunted in the west yesterday. They saw that 'un at the Ossuary."

  Adewole stopped mid-stride, mind racing. "Did he go in?"

  "Dunno about goin' in, but he came out," said Ofira.

  Adewole dropped his lunch basket and took off at a run, feet pounding against the old cobbles. He ignored the cheerful halloos of the early morning Risentoners, rushed past the quadrangle's leaf-packed garden beds and up the Library steps. The front door was locked. He fumbled his key out of his pocket, unlocked the door and went inside the deserted Library; Mr. Buckan wasn't due for hours yet. Adewole strode through the dim aisle between the bookcases to the rare book room.