Î did what she could on her own. She practiced her runes, she cleaned the workshop, and she spent a lot of time sitting around doing nothing. Lord Glove was gone on business, and no one else, not even old Jorgmund knew how to get the golem to talk. Three days passed. Several hours before dawn on the fourth day, Î’s waiting came to an end.
“I’m sorry to wake you ma’am, but there’s something at the bottom of the stairs. It asked for you by name. Sounded like nothing I ever heard. Like a mother crying for her child during a storm. Nothing good could come from a voice like that. I wouldn’t go if I were you, but I thought I should say all the same.”
Î leapt out of bed and started changing into her dress, “Emet spoke?”
Gar’s voice came through the door again, “I suppose it must have ma’am.”
Î threw open her door, “Let’s go.”
“Are you sure?”
Î rolled her eyes and started running for the door.
Gar hurried after her, “At least take a cloak! It’s awfully cold out.”
Î paused outside the door of the manor to let him catch up. She supposed it was cold out, but she found it bothered her less and less the more time she spent in the workshop.
“I’m okay.”
Gar shook his head in disbelief, “Just like Lord Glove, must be the soup old Yekha makes.”
Gar followed her to the shack and then, to Î’s surprise, helped her down the stairs.
“Don’t want you stumbling miss. It would break my poor wife’s heart if I let a young lady like yourself go tumbling down these frozen steps.”
They reached the door.
“I made you a lunch,” Gar said, handing it to her, “just in case. Best of luck.”
Î gifted him with a grin and then dashed into the workshop. Her path to Emet now only took a handful of minutes thanks to Î’s laborious cleaning efforts.
Before she reached the golem, papers scattered in front of her started rustling melancholically, “I… am sorry…we have lost so much time…”
Î clasped her hands behind her back and twisted back and forth. In her long days spent cleaning she had pondered what could have made Emet so upset. The image had kept flashing through her mind: two lines, one smooth, the other jagged, in a complicated trail, and a single dot in a cup formed by the jagged line. “I’m not going to use obey runes.”
“You place yourself…in danger…”
Î bit her lip, “Yep.”
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A sigh, at once large and yet softer than any before, rushed from Emet’s lips.
“I… thank you.”
Î sat on the board in front of Emet, “What’s next?”
“Etch into your golem’s flesh… the runes you desire… Use iron, for it is tame.”
Î found the iron inscription tool in the same jumble of metal hooks where the copper one had been. It appeared identical in all but colour. However, upon picking it up, she found it to be strangely light in her hand.
“It feels different,” Î said.
“A Kineser must learn… not to draw once…. but seven times. Each of the tools… has its own heft, hardness, and… pliancy. Be sure of your hand…. before you etch…. in iron.”
Î’s golem had crumbled during its days of neglect. Î reshaped its head back into the semblance of a sphere. It needed eyes. She had given up before, but a new idea had come to her. Instead of the stick Î used her inscription tool to poke an eye into its head. The eye held. Carefully, she added a second.
Î’s homunculus was now the proud possessor of two soulful eyes set in a bulbous head. Î thought it looked adorable. She wondered what it would say if it could talk. Emet had claimed one of the runes, Voice, was able to store messages or grant speech. Î took her time drawing the scrawling symbol on her golem’s head, but the lighter tool and the soft earth combined to make her strokes wide and sloppy, and the rune became oddly elongated.
“—” Î said with a sigh, then, “—!” with a start. Her voice was gone. All the sound was gone. Î realized she could not hear herself breathing, nor even make out the rushing of blood in her ears. It felt like she was suffocating. She tried to yell again, then screamed until her voice was raw, but all that echoed back from the walls was silence.
Emet began to blow. The wind was so powerful it knocked Î prostrate. The floor rumbled beneath her, and chunks of earth fell from the ceiling, pummeling the back of Î’s head. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a shelf collapse, spilling its contents into a kiln.
Î struggled to her feet. Her heart was pounding. Blood sloshed painfully though her limbs. In the terrible silence it felt as though she was being pushed in every direction at once. Î spun in confusion and once again toppled to the floor.
Î’s hearing returned with painful clarity the moment her head struck the ground. Emet was roaring. The sound alone was a physical force. With the wind’s accompaniment it was a hurricane. Shelves collapsed, tables buckled, and great clouts of matter crashed from the ceiling. Î huddled in a ball, hands pressed against her ears and wept in agony.
The noise died down a moment later. Î cautiously removed her hands from her ears. They were ringing loudly, but the sensation was a relief compared to the smothering silence she had endured.
“To end a rune… it must be destroyed,” Emet said, ‘Look to your golem… which never was.”
It was in ruins. One of its arms had fallen off, its base had liquefied, and its head had collapsed. The rune atop it was gone. The markings, along with its eyes, had become featureless soil once more.
Black lines tracked down Î’s cheeks and fell in muddy dollops to the floor. She let out several frightened sobs. She waited for Lord Glove, or Gar, or Lanet. When no one came to comfort her, she wrapped her own arms about herself. Her breath came in sudden shaky gasps. She was huddled with her arms around her knees for a long time, long enough to feel thirsty, and then hungry. Finally her need for sustenance overrode her fear. She unwrapped Gar’s lunch and began to eat. Her anguish left her, lodging behind her eyes where only Î could feel it. She wiped her nose with the backside of her hand.
“Now what?”
“You have much talent… but your confidence… is weakened. The rest of the day… will be spent in practice.”