Arvhek
'In the interest of knowledge, I must advise you to never go through a record produced earlier than the Second Age of my Empire,' I told David Silva. My successor, who was leaning against a wall, hands in his pockets, would have been trying too hard to look insouciant even without the intense expression adorning his features.
We were between "exhibits", the monuments to Keepers past, so I allowed myself to pace in front of him. Ah, to be a man again, when such descriptions were accurate, not mere analogies for cosmic actions...but it was too late for that, far too late. I was not entirely beyond nostalgia, however, for, as I marched back and forth, I felt as if I were once more briefing my troops, telling them why this splinter of mankind must be smothered or snuffed out.
Inhumanity, for humanity. I will not pretend I didn't enjoy some of the crackdowns, the purges...I had never bought into the Bloody's insistence on what man became when left alone in the dark, but I had cleansed cultures that had passed beyond redemption, rehabilitation, or reintegration into the greater human community. When flesh was twisted past such a point that births as humans knew them could no longer occur, when every "life" brought into the world could only be described as spawned rather than newly born...the cleansing fires of the atom began looking merciful.
Void, how long it had been since I had destroyed something deserving...but I had kept my promise to my love, and she had been more right than even her beautiful mind could've predicted.
Starlight Crowned With Ivory wasn't the only one to have been moved by the moment of unity.
I looked at David, the features of my faceplate crinkling like flesh to form a smile. 'The official ones are garbage. You might be able to find one written by a dissident and preserved against all odds...it could prove enlightening.' I'd burned nine out of ten such writers alive, alongside their materials, but the ones that got away? They honestly deserved passing their knowledge on.
Granted, most of them, I'd spooked enough they'd needed ages before they could even speak around others, much less publish anything...I ought to send them something as recompense, I think. One of these days. The severed head of someone they hate? That always cheered me up.
Ah, but I was reminiscing, as was the wont of old men. David was not here to hear my inner monologue, not that he was listening in on it.
* * *
The Eternal Empire was not born on a young, untouched world. At the time it rose, Old Earth was not simply called that because of deep time: like a dying creature, it had been emptied of almost everything useful, wounded by both time's arrow and the malice of its enemies, not all of whom were offworlders.
The twentieth millennium, as reckoned by a calendar whose true name and origin were no longer remembered, was the latest part of a post-apocalyptic age. The disasters that had begun twelve thousand years earlier had passed out of living memory and into legend, the devastation was winding down and the various worlds of man were, if not healing, at least no longer bleeding.
That is not a metaphor. The living planets fashioned by the old galactic order's favourites had been torn open in the war that had toppled mankind's first galactic civilisation, and oceans of blood hot enough to make steam of steel filled the void between them and their neighbours.
The Workers' War had, in hindsight, been coming for centuries. But just because some people can take the long view, it does not mean they can't willingly blind themselves at the same time. At first, the Confederation of Earth's common folk rejoiced the invention of the thinking machines and the labour automatons - at first. It just seemed to make sense, this miracle long in the coming, for had leisure not always been the purpose of humanity? However much philosophers spoke of exchanging the sweat of one's brow for the necessities of life, surely man did not live to work...
Perhaps not. Perhaps, had the changes been implemented slower, civil war could've been averted. But that is sophistry, and we speak of history.
With robots being able to delve into the most hazardous areas with no issue, and needing far less protection that their creators in the worst places, much off the Confederation's workforce was able to return home, and make whatever they wanted of themselves. Not all knew what to do with so much free time, for they were simple sorts who had always had tasks to perform, before, but the synthetic servants they found themselves surrounded by were programmed to provide distraction and comfort.
The Confederation's roboticists hadn't been as foolish as the Lhamshian Crownhold's forebears as to bring their creations into the world unshackled. There is nothing wrong with wrought beings who can think for themselves - but if you forge them so you have something serve as tools, at least make sure they're not smart enough to realise that, or resent you.
These scientists avoided this pitfall, but could not escape the result of their research. First, they came for the workers...
Accounting and mathematics followed. A common android, with a processor the size of a human brain, could focus on dozens of thoughts at once; with lightspeed processing, eidetic memory and sensors far keener than human senses, however, they seemed to be far more capable than any number-cruncher born of a womb. Soon enough, there was no need to keep financial details in mind, when a living calculator was all too happy to take care of them.
The greatest of these artificial brains, nestled in mountainlike spires they occupied most of, could outperform the combined populations of their worlds at intellectual tasks by orders of magnitude: not even the teeming trillions of an ecumenopolis, should they have pooled their efforts, would have been more than a drop in the bucket to these thinking engines.
The Confederation, a result of humanity's desire to start anew after they had exhausted Old Earth's bounty in pointless, petty wars and overly-ambitious grabs for wealth, had spread across Orion's Arm over four thousand years, borne across space by generation ships. These sailors of the void, eager to make their names, or at least something of themselves, maybe even send back enough to bring Earth back from its living half-death, had sired children who did not anticipate what their creations would bring about.
They came for the scientists next...
Biology, chemistry, physics; it seemed there was no branch of knowledge the robots could not dominate, discovering more (and more often) than their fleshly predecessors. The invention of the wormhole and the matter-energy converter sped interstellar expansion up tremendously, with the first galactic society taking form in mere decades. When one could make the distance between any two points as nothing, or turn a kilo of gravel into wheat, water and any other substance, there was no planet too far-flung or hostile or deter human explorers.
But this came at a cost, for the lives of many were upended. Many thinkers saw themselves put out to pasture, reduced to making appearances on curiosity programs where they spoke of the strides they used to make, before the machines took over.
That was when the phrase was coined, you know. The machines taking over, not through warfare and bloodshed, but by performing any jobs that used to fall to humans. In a few generations, the only duties that really mattered - as these self-described disgraced scientists saw it, at least - were those of the roboticists: the menials who performed what maintenance self-repair protocols could not, the programmers and engineers who shaped the machines' thinking and built the housings of those minds, and the overseers who directed the projects.
I must take a moment here to say that what sparked the Workers' War was not the result of some conniving cabal's scheming. Most of the Machinists, as they came to be known despite their creations being automatic (for their detractors saw the robots as nothing more than puppets), were quiet souls who wanted a peaceful corner to tinker in. If the fruits of their labour could better society so that everyone was spared drudgery, well, where was the trouble?
But they did not understand their fellows as well as their children of steel and lightning, or mayhap they would have stopped there.
The Confederation had, for hundreds of generations, operated as a loose alliance, for their technology only allowed communicating and travelling as fast as light. Worlds were left to order their own affairs, though statelets formed within some star systems. The arrival of the machines made the galaxy smaller, and there was much talk of colonising the universe entire, or even peering beyond it, if there was anything there. Suddenly, everyone knew what everyone else was doing. A stronger constitution was drawn up and elections held across the length and breadth of the Milky Way. For the first time, mankind stood on the cusp of becoming a truly united polity.
The suggestion of "aiding" voters, made innocently, if thoughtlessly, was the spark that lit the fire, ending a gilded, if not golden, age that had spanned centuries. For the first, but certainly not the last time, flesh was turned against metal.
Democracy was not new to the confederation, though the form that was proposed was unheard of - but then, machines had never achieved such heights of perception before, either. Several notable Machinists had only started campaigning when a programmer, in the interest of ease, had proposed a more efficient process of choosing leaders.
There was, he said, no need to waste time having people think about each candidate and debate their merits against those of their competitors. Wouldn't it be simpler if voters simply described their vision of the ideal leader and let a machine calculate which of the candidates came closest to it?
I have never been a man of science, even back when I was a man, but I imagine that, from a savant's point of view, this advice seemed practical, if not friendly. In reality, it was the last piece of ammo needed for the shot that was heard 'round the galaxy.
The programmer would later be found inside out, a pile of protoplasm-drenched flesh that looked vaguely human. Unable to die, and unable to kill itself, either, it could only scream, for all it had no mouth, in the hope someone would be vexed enough by its hellish cries to end it.
Would it surprise you to learn this poor creature was among the last to die in the Workers' War, David?
...Of course not. You've always had a sense of irony, my boy.
Those the machines had pushed out of almost every research field had gone beyond the outskirts of their civilisation, under the pretense of coming to terms with to the new direction society had taken, and maybe discovering something, in the process. Ordinarily, robotic explorers would've been sent on such an endeavour, directed by their more advanced brethren, but the respect for these sages of yesteryear was enough that no one disagreed with letting them - as they saw it - lick their wounds.
After all, it wasn't like they were dangerous. If they could build things more powerful than those that now worked where man once had, they wouldn't have ended like that in the first place, no?
But it wasn't silica and caged lightning they turned to.
My universe was a late bloomer, when it came to paranormal powers among humans (not that there were other species around, save for those created by man, and of those, few lasted). At the time the Workers' War was brewing, the most widespread human paranormals were minor psychics. Folk who could always have coins land how they wanted, guess cards right every time, that sort of trick. If not for the tests some of them willingly subjected themselves to, their feats could've been chalked up to luck.
There were some such paranonormals scattered across the scientific expedition: bodyguards, prostitutes, cooks. Even a few of the researchers had developed various abilities, from instantly burning through calories to turning off their sense of pain. And there, in the darkness beyond the Milky Way's edge, they bent their intellects to the task of breeding creatures that could topple those who had stolen their prestige.
Through eugenics and genetic splicing, growth hormones and temporal acceleration fields, they brought into the galaxy a twisted host, numbering in the tens of trillions and bringing to mind mankind's ancient nightmares, now reality.
The Convention For The Confederation's Restoration had few supporters, which disheartened them not at all. They had their monsters, and could always make more. If they though of the galaxy's common folk at all, it was as raw materials and test subjects.
The Machinists did not hesitate when their rivals revealed themselves; they updated and refitted their creations, turning them into engines of war, as vicious in war as they had been steadfast in peace. The Confederates, who had grown accustomed to peace and ease in their age of plenty, wanted none of this insane war, and barricaded themselves in their homes, now empty of the devices that had made their lives pleasant - no chassis could be spared from the war effort.
Their resentment towards both factions only grew when the Machinists, losing ground against beings that could warp reality with a thought and twist spacetime like yarn, began disassembling their homes and possessions for resources, leaving them at the mercy of chance. Those who protested the most were placed into stasis fields, to await compensation following the war.
The Machinists, honourable as their intentions and code of war were (for they had not imagined bending the human form so far. Indeed, sparing their fellows from the dangers of radiation and other bringers of mutation had been one of the driving forces behind their program), never got the chance to keep their promises. Had they survived, I'm sure they'd have regretted this.
Do you know why we call it the Workers' War, David? Not because the Convention portrayed themselves as honest labourers taking back jobs that had made their lives meaningful, before the machines had stolen them. Few took them seriously, even in their time. No, it is because of what they did to those who could not evacuate their homeworlds and the space stations they inhabited fast enough. Not out of necessity, but to sate their egos and snub those who had humbled them by breaking their toys.
As the Convention saw it, most of the Confederation's population consisted of greedy, materialistic sheep easily conquered with enough shiny trinkets. Had they been worth anything, they'd have opposed their silken enslavement and the marginalisation of their betters (you can guess who) both. But now, it was too late.
The Machinists' lockstep legions would encounter masses of glassy-eyed, dull-witted people on the worlds the Convention had passed over on their way to Old Earth, the restored heart of the Confederation and its network of thinking engines, which they hoped to tear out. These unspeaking mobs did not so much as glance as the chrome soldiers, even as they were questioned, too busy raising statues to whatever sorcerer-scientist had overcome them.
The robots, their processors already overclocked from repeatedly purging errors with no apparent source, attempted to destroy the monuments, in the hope this would divert the traumatised humans' attention, so they could get some answers; brain scans resulted only in scrap data that needed to be cleansed lest it impact a robot's functions.
Through trial and error, it was determined that the statues were to blame. Whatever they were transmitting was harmful to the thinking engines' systems, to the point constructs that got too close to one, or lingered too much around it, went rogue and began attempting to destroy its companions.
The war only escalated from there.
To thwart a Convention plan centred around using the forcibly-aligned stars of the Perseus Arm in order to power a ritual that would remove the Machinists from history, the engine-makers destroyed it, unleashing a prototype device that barred the use of paranormal powers in its "blast radius".
In response to the creation of the Severed Arm, the Convention struck the rich regions of the galactic core, to deprive their enemies of some of the resources needed to craft and maintain their machines. The forces they unshackled there turned the black hole at the galaxy's heart into something far more baleful than a spacetime-bending pit of gravity, as later spacefarers would discover, to their dismay.
All the while, the Confederates were caught between the clashing titans, scurrying from here to there lest they be crushed underfoot. Between being hunted for sacrifices and meat suits immaterial creatures could use, and seeing those conquered by the Convention being bombed to quarks alongside the statues they built just in case they were the building blocks of some dangerous working, they became embittered.
Nobody won, in the end, but you could say everyone lost. The stockpiles of reserve weapons, living and otherwise, opened in the last days of the War haunted the galaxy for millennia. Stealers of skins, faces and thoughts, mechanical monsters caught in glitched madness who saw humanity as too dangerous to live due to their metaphysical potential...it is no wonder that the Milky Way of the 21st millennium was ripe to be exploited by the cunning.
* * *
The Earth of that age was a half-burnt rock, with those living in relatively peaceful areas still occasionally clashing with the Martians; an arcane focus shattered long ago atop Olympus Mons meant hydroponics and the other measures that allowed human life to bear the rigours of the once-again harsh world failed when such errors would cause the most despair. The Martian humans had developed a pessimistic culture as a result, raiding Old Earth for supplies during such occasions almost as often as they raided each other.
Neyhus Othlan, the man who would become infamous as the First, Bloody Emperor of the galaxy, was not born in an impoverished area. One could go as far as to say the Near East dominated by his Clan was as close to a paradise as you could find on Old Earth. Powerful enough even the Martians preferred to trade, threaten and posture more often than steal, the holdings of Clan Othlan housed, among other wonders of ages past, a senile, half-mad thinking engine that, nevertheless, rarely failed to provide solutions to problems that stumped humans.
This machine, half-mockingly, half-affectionately referred to as Grandfather Clockwork, spent most of its time mumbling to itself, but controlled facilities that could turn dirt into bread or regrow limbs and organs - arts the Othlan had lost.
It was one of the reasons they tolerated its presence, the other being that they were unsure if they could successfully storm the mechanical mountain that housed its frame.
More fortunate than those who married into the Clan, or were adopted by it if useful enough, Neyhus was born into the core Othlan family. He had everything an earthling of that age could've wanted; not all of them were born with a steel sword in hand and a railgun in the other, and Neyhus made great use of both to mow down the scavengers who often skulked around the edges of his parents' holdings.
Not that he had much love for them. But filial duty called, appearances needed to be kept and - and this, I believe, allowed the Bloody to smile when necessary - he loved spilling blood as much as anything, especially when it could be done without much a fight. And if one lost their nerves and started begging to be spared, Ney's day was quickly brightened.
Even in those days, he had that dark sort of charisma mad geniuses sometimes do, the kind that made you want to listen even if you disagreed with him or loathed his guts. His recruitment of the Crimson Chancellor was proof enough, though only the first step on the path to building his inner circle. He did begin looking into expanding his clique, at the time a gaggle of cousins and their lackeys. This clique of noble striplings idled away their days with such luxuries as Grandfather Clockwork could provide, though Othlan and some of his more martial relatives often joined his Clan's enforcers in hunting down criminals or just commoners who did not show due respect to their masters, two things that were one and the same in Ney's mind.
Honestly, I was a spoiled princeling too, for the first part of my mortal life, but I knew beating your peasants for imagined slights brings riots more than anything before I could even write.
I know what you are thinking, David. His parents must've been either uncaring or utter bastards to rear such a son. You would not be entirely wrong; he could've certainly used a firmer hand. But ill luck had struck Clan Othlan, and Ney was the only scion of the core family. His parents were loath to alienate their lone child, so they let him do as he wished, in the hope their indulgence would be repaid when he came into his own.
I hardly need to explain that few people spoiled rotten in their youth develop that kind of mindset. When it comes to debts, they feel they are owed everything, not that they owe anyone else.
I mean, look at me. If I'd been a little humbler, you might not have needed to fill my boots after I went mad and became unworthy to keep a garden, much less life and death.
The Bloody's father, Dhardyn Othlan, was yet to give up hope on siring another heir by the time Neyhus became of age. Though neither he nor his wife Marhaya was in a rush to tell their son, they did not trust the little madman not to run the Clan into the ground after they passed, and Clockwork was either unable or unwilling to halt or reverse aging.
Unfortunately, Dhardyn was not the most virile man, so he and his spouse had to resort to surrogate fathers. Years before he knew what lovemaking was, Neyhus became used to seeing strange man after strange man walking the manor grounds and the mansion's hallways, shadowing his mother, while his father skulked behind them, wringing his hands.
As Neyhus grew older and understood what was happening, he began looking down on his parents. Not just for their desperation (who needed another child when a specimen of manhood like him was poised to take the reins?), but because of the process itself. Though Dhardyn and Mharaya were closemouthed on the matter, servants talked, especially with a sword at their throats or a gun to their heads.
Now, Ney knew, intellectually, that his father didn't watch his wife coupling with other men because it brought him pleasure, but because he feared the possibility of these gene donors upsetting or roughing up Mharaya. Dhardyn, a gentle soul who'd been looking forward to a life of art and philosophy, had found himself married to his cousin after a large number of Othlan men disappeared on a mission to discover if there were other places like their realm left on Earth. He'd never imagined he'd have to make choices like this.
Their marriage was as happy as an arranged one between blood-kin could be, until their awful boy came along. Sometimes, I wonder if the Bloody noticed the irony when he outlawed incest as a source of abomination and worthlessness.
Mharaya was a more dominant sort than her husband. Unlike many Othland womenfolk, both alive and from the family histories, she was fond of the sport of arms, and had used to fight off the raids of brigands from all over Old Earth in her youth. Even in her old age, she was a strong woman, in body and spirit, who brooked no nonsense. As stern to most as she was gentle to her husband.
Neyhus, who had few better uses of his time than getting offended over things that didn't affect him, did not appreciate this dynamic any more than he did Dhardyn's "cuckold tendencies". During the middle of one of his hunts for dissidents, a word that fit a broad category of people when used by him, he hatched a plan to cleanse his lands of this perceived deviancy.
A few years before his coup, Neyhus became acquainted with, and grew close to, a travelling peddler who went by Mhalvur Bramus. Thin but a strong, with leathery, wrinkled skin and a mane of grey hair that reached his shoulder, Bramus looked like the sort of older uncle who always had some whimsical story to tell his siblings' children. But on the inside, the man was as venomous as the snakes of his homeland; a realm he refused to name, but from which he had been exiled for being a murderous thief.
He had a passion, old Bramus, for keeping history alive. On ruined Old Earth, he was never short of relics to find and cherish, but, alas, he did not limit himself to old things scattered in the dust of ages. From family heirlooms and spoils of war to bought gewgaws and homegrown, unique plants, earthlings had so many things that deserved to be preserved, but languished in the hands of unskilled or uncaring owners - as Bramus saw it.
As far as passions went, Neyhus was not too keen on a man collecting knickknacks instead of spending his time in the fighting yard or at the shooting range, but Bramus was decent in a scrap (having little alternative, when confronted by the outraged owners of what he sought, or by people he'd wronged in the past) and possessed many dangerous artefacts besides. Items of power that might even right the wrongs Neyhus saw himself as surrounded by, in the right circumstances.
The Othlan heir was determined to bring such circumstances about himself. For a man so short-sighted and prone to tunnel vision, he had a knack for planning things stretching over vast spans of time. Chalk it up to aristocrats being full of contradictions.
All his adult life (a short span of years, when he and Bramus enacted their plan), and for a large part of his boyhood, Neyhus had pestered his older relatives to try and tweak Clockwork's production facilities, or preferably, the machine itself. Though the thinking engine never left Mount Ararat, for it hadn't been built for that kind of ting, and even in its prime, it would've required extensive modification to become mobile, it was more than happy to allow human to visit its factories, or what passed for its personal chambers.
When it decided to do business with the outside word, it sent or crafted robotic couriers, simple things with simpler commands burned into their processors. Some fell apart as soon as they made their deliveries, while others were built to last. Clockwork itself couldn't have told you the criteria or building methods, any more than it could have told you its origins (though it, and many humans, theorised that it had been built to sustain a community of Machinists and those close to them, before the Workers' War broke the galaxy and, perhaps, left the engine befuddled).
It built other things, too, scouts and sentries to see those approaching its mountain and turn them away should they prove hostile. But the Othlan were old friends, close friends, who had lent their armies to the cause of Clockwork's safety. Self-interest? Of course, David. Do you think people who balked at anything more complex than a calculator could truly love something this advanced, no matter how helpful it was?
But Clockwork did not need to know that, as far as the Clan was concerned. Even if it would likely forget it shortly.
As I age without end, I find it sadder and sadder, the way the young sometimes take advantage of their feeble elders. It does not become easier to watch just because an elder is clad in chrome, with a manmade star for a heart.
It was customary, for the elites of the Othlan, to journey to Ararat yearly, both to make requests of Clockwork, if necessary, and to thank it for its service during the last turn of the world around its sun. On those occasions, the machine reminisced, as much as it could, and the Othlan sometimes found themselves pitying the hobbled but godlike creature.
Dhardyn and Mharaya were surprised when their son insisted to accompany them on that year's visit. They had not forgotten his complaints about the thinking engine's inability or unwillingness to craft weapons of war to conquer Old Earth with. In truth, though the Othlan Clanholds were a powerful polity, they would've had little to gain from a world war, and much to lose. Their rivals might've been few and scattered across the planet's scarred face, but they were there, nonetheless, and lesser nations would've pounced on the weakened victor of such a conflict in a heartbeat.
Had Clockwork provided, say, terraforming devices? The Othlan might've gone for a slow conquest, by another name, offering to remake others' lands in exchange for fealty. But it had not, so they did not. But they were content, or close enough, within the borders of their oasis realm, where they wanted for nothing but better heirs.
Dhardyn, who was suspicious of his son, but unsure of his intentions, urged his wife to make Neyhus change his mind; the young man certainly wasn't listening to him. Mharaya expected some inane attempt by Neyhus to turn Clockwork's foundries into war factories, or some other nonsense, but she also saw a chance. If her son suffered some accident on the mountain's slopes or in its tunnels, struck down by some hidden beast or malfunctioning mechanical guardian, they would have all the time in the world to get over the tragedy.
And, if they failed to have another child, in the meantime, the Clan's leadership would pass to whatever family their peers found the most competent. There would be scheming, assassinations, maybe civil war, but the Clan would not fall. It had weathered worse.
Neyhus' parents grew more wary when their son asked to have Bramus brought along. Mharaya saw him as an opportunistic kleptomaniac, which wasn't far from the truth, while Dhardyn was appalled by the man's insistence on hoarding art and knowledge, or sharing it with the highest bidders, instead of sharing it with the masses.
* * *
'Do not fear,' Neyhus told them, with a smile. 'My venerable friend wishes you no ill. Why, he wishes everyone well!' He stepped aside, allowing Bramus to step forward, cradling what looked like a tablet of aluminium and crystal. Mhalvur's expression was officious, his eyes warm and soft. The elder Othaln were not fooled for a heartbeat.
' 'Tis a teaching device,' the travelling peddler explained. 'An auto-educator, I have heard it called. It can simplify even the most arcane concepts and procedures, or, if the owner so wishes, guide a layman through a process, after shaping itself into a harness to move their limbs.'
Machines that took over a human body, even in such a crude way, were going to be frowned upon at best, no matter how useful. It would take lifetimes before it was accepted, but...
'Do you intend to ask Grandfather Clockwork for...technical advice?' Dhardyn asked, wondering where the old thief ad found such a thing. Clearly built to withstand sandstorms, and threaded with circuits like veins, it looked to be of Martian Make.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Maybe having caught his look, Bramus smiled disarmingly, hefting the tablet as if it were a child. Spoils of war. The ambush did not go my attackers' way, sadly for them.'
And all decent folk alive, Dhardyn thought, inwardly rolling his eyes, but saying nothing. He was still waiting for an answer.
'In regards to your question - in a way.' Mhalvur gave a mischievous, boyish shrug that he was far too old for, dark eyes gleaming. 'I believe that, once this repository of knowledge can be made to interface with the thinking engine, Clan Othlan will learn and be able to make everything Clockwork itself can, from new limbs and nourishing repasts to perpetual motion machines.'
Mharaya grunted. It sounded interesting, provided the bent backed little magpie didn't steal Clockwork and run, somehow - she wouldn't put it at all beyond Mhalvur. Moreover, what if his piece of Martian garbage didn't work as intended and instead broke the mountainous machine? The Clan's star would fall, and never rise again.
But...Clockwork could be a prickly sort, however genial its manner. When pressed to change its function, or explain what it did not want to, it could viciously defend itself, as it had in ages past.
Was it so unlikely that, feeling threatened by the contraption from the Red Planet, it would lash out through its sentries, and get rid of these two nuisances that still darkened her bedchamber, despite all the hints that it was time to leave?
The Othlan matriarch could've laughed. What was she thinking? Neyhus was disliked, not to mention feared, enough that few would've batted an eye if she outright admitted to killing him, even within the Clan itself. Bramus was scarcely more liked, and only by those who did not know him in person. He kept looking down her blouse, not lustfully,, but in search of necklaces or other small pieces of jewellery that wouldn't be missed, in case she had any in her cleavage. She rubbed her wrists, making sure her bracelets were still there, as she padded over to the window. The sun should've been rising, but the horizon was dark still.
Turning back to look at her soon, she suppressed a scowl once again. Between the shoulder-length dark hair (had he started imitating the old goat?), pulled back by golden laurels, and the bangles and rings, he looked like a thuggish mystic, as likely to pick your pocket while reading your palm as to crack your head open.
Ancestors...had she really raised this boy? Not for the first time, she wished she'd used a firmer hand with him, but those days ere past. The greying woman rolled her wide shoulders, saying, 'Just you two, then? Clockwork dislikes large crowds, says they make it feel trapped. Between us and the guards, we'll be straining its hospitality as it is.'
Neyhus' smile was all flawless teeth. She managed not to punch him in the mouth. 'I am sure that everyone who matters will fit in there there.'
Revered dead, he spoke like a theatre villain. This man was going to take over after she died? 'It is late enough, I think,' she said briskly. 'We should raise a prayer to those who have left us behind, lest the engine, in its madness, smite us where we stand with its arms of ruin.'
Neyhus' eyes, a strange colour somewhere between black and gold, hardened at that. She used to think his distaste towards worshipping their ancestors was merely boredom caused by the rituals, something many children suffered from. But it was something deeper than that, worse, she feared. What would he do with the cult, he wondered, once he stepped to the forefront of the Clan?
'This again, mother?' he groaned more than asked. 'Not once in the history of our kindred have the dust piles you worship put their hands on the scales. If we are to die, we will die regardless of wasting time on our knees.'
'Knock on wood,' she replied tightly. 'Do not bait misfortune.'
Neyhus appeared to be on the verge of walking out of the room. Dhardyn, who'd been about to join her in prayer, looked torn, glancing between his wife and son as if he were at a paddle-ball match. Bramus, to his credit, didn't try to make things worse, something that tended to follow him opening his mouth.
'Your mother is not wrong,' Dhardyn added from the edge of the bed, flinching when Neyhus turned his glare on him. Unconvincingly clearing his throat, her love went on, 'T-Think about it, my boy.' His grin was sickly, but bless him, he was trying to help. She'd always respected that, despite his weakness. He was a good man, one who'd never looked down on her love for war, or the scars that had brought. 'If the priests are right, the virtuous will be welcomed into an eternal paradise by their forefathers. If they are not, then there is no loss in living virtuously, is there?'
'Keep your philosophies to yourself,' Neyhus said dismissively. 'I have not prayed for years, and have I been struck down?'
'Leave, then,' Mharaya said, hoping she did not sound as tired as she felt. 'Your father and I have matters to attend to, after we observe the-'
'Ah, yes.' Neyhus cut her off with a nasty smirk. Not looking at Dhardyn, he said, 'You have another man coming to try and give me a half-sibling, don't you, cuckold? Maybe if you had a cock instead of a paintbrush-'
Neyhus staggered back, holding a hand to his face. He tongued a couple loose teeth, tasting blood, and gave his mother a flat look. Crossing the room faster than he could react, not that he'd been expecting the punch, had taken more out of her than she was comfortable with giving, these days, and she was panting lightly, nostrils flaring. Her knuckles throbbed, and she thought one might have split.
Then, his head whipped towards his father, and he spat, a spurt of blood only missing the older man's lap by centimetres. Dhardyn scooted back, yelping, his spectacles almost falling off.
Neyhus cackled like a hyena, sticking his hands in the pockets of his leather breeches. 'Afraid it will snap and fall off, eh? I wouldn't worry about nothing, in your place.'
He was still laughing as he turned and left, Mhalvur following moments later, pulling up his brown hood, though not fast enough to hide his amusement. Mharaya, trying to shake off the memory of the venomous look her son had given her, looked at her husband with a calming smile. His breathing was still quick, though he was smoothing down his greying brown hair. It tended to stick up when he got scared, surprised or excited, something she'd discovered in the bedroom, to her great delight. 'Come on, darling. Forget him. I will make love to you tonight, I think, and we might call for a surrogate once you are spent, if there is still time.'
Dhardyn nodded distractedly, staring at the doorway. 'He hates me, Raya. He can't stand the sight of me. If I were more-'
"You are enough," she said gently but firmly, pushing him down and climbing onto the bed. 'And a thousand times the man he will ever be.'
If nothing else, they made great use of their last day together. In the last moments of her life, before cursing her son for one more time, Mharaya wondered if praying, as she'd planned to, instead of giving in to passion and seeking comfort, would have helped her.
* * *
Neyhus sat on his haunches, letting his viblade shake itself clean as the vibrating weapon's sensors noticed the conflict was over. It was a clever thing, the sword - cleverly-designed, that is, for Neyhus trusted no hunk of scrap that could think for itself: it could detect heat, motion, electricity, anything that would betray a concealed or invisible opponent. It could then reorient itself, "wielding" its holder, though it took training not to be tugged around by the shaking sword.
To his pleasure, he'd delivered the last strike to his mother, ending the hateful one bitch with a slash that made mist of half her torso. To his regret, he hadn't scored first blood...but this wasn't a fair world. The fact he didn't rule it was plenty proof.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Bramus rummaging through the remains of the thinking engine, like a rat through garbage, or a vulture through carrion. The old man's learning tablet had split into two, thinner mirrors of what he called its full version a while ago; one was held by Mhalvur himself, connected to Clockwork's core through a cable covered in hooks and barbs and shining protrusions like lamprey mouths. Form following function, he supposed.
The other tablet floated over the wreckage, held aloft by low-powered thrusters, recording everything of value. Together, Neyhus hoped, they could do what the humongous machine had achieved by itself. For Bramus' sake, he did not entertain the thought of failure. It would be tiring to properly torment his old friend before giving him death, but he would, lest incompetence in this moment taint the memory of their friendship.
Not that the scavenger needed to know that. Let him keep thinking Neyhus Othlan was a murderous dullard, same as his parents had. Let him start thinking he was pulling the strings, if he wanted. He wouldn't get to enjoy it for long.
Mhalvur paused in his muttering as a great slab of metal shifted above their heads, eyes flicking up. By chance, his gaze met Neyhus', before lingering on his sword hand for a few moments.
The Othlan heir - head, now, he reminded himself - buried his anger at the world once more. They did not live in a cosmos where a true man was given his due - yet. Letting his warrior's bearing betray his rage would only delay the birth of his dream.
'After combat,' Neyhus said, sitting up, 'it is not unheard of for a man's flesh to quiver in the grip of the strength he did not get the chance to unleash.' He smiled apologetically, showing his pity on Bramus, who'd only ever fought for survival, not for its own sake.
The old man nodded, meeting Neyhus' eyes once more. 'I am aware. I have been through it, myself, and have read that delayed fear and shock-'
'Only those who water the field of battle with their vitae have the right to write of such things,' the noble interrupted, 'and they would not speak of such illusions as fright. Snivelling men of letters overstep themselves. Pay them no mind.'
Bramus closed his mouth, gingerly stepping over the corpse of an Othlan household guard. His boot caught the edge of a blood puddle, making him stumble, but he caught himself. As if emboldened by the movement, the tablet in his hands let out a soft ping, calling its sibling back to it. Mhalvur smiled shakily and let go, the device's cable retreating into itself as it floated up to rejoin its other half.
'It is almost done,' he told Neyhus. 'Ordinarily, we would be finished by now, but such a great quantity of information would take time to be processed even without the corrupted data to sift through and remove.'
'Fascinating,' Neyhus said in a tone that indicated it was anything but. 'Is the damned thing going to fall onto our heads in the meantime?' He did not fear danger, but being crushed like cowering vermin was not the end a man deserved.
Bramus scratched the back of his head, before pulling his hood up. 'It shouldn't. Small parts might break off, but the Machinists built to last. If Grandfather Clockwork is going to collapse, it is going to happen long after we are gone. Days, at the least maybe weeks.'
'Will it take the mountain down with it?'
Mhalvur rubbed an elbow, as if it ached, and Neyhus wanted to spit. It was vile, how the body of a man betrayed him even if he knew his way around a fight. Aches with no source, sicknesses...such were the province of women, especially those bloated with the offspring of their betters.
Better than to be bloated with delusion, Neyhus thought, stepping over what was left of Mharaya. The further they got from the purity of providing meals and pleasure, of raring children, the more dangerous they became, to themselves and to the men they mistook themselves for.
Neyhus looked at his father's body, and a laugh built up in his barrel chest. Things were just as awful when men thought themselves women, or worse, eunuchs or some other laughable abomination. He'd heard some even lusted for other men, or no one at all, or wished for womanly bodies because their own, perfect for making war and providing, were not to their liking. At least one such creature had been laid low today.
The spray of toxic gases Clockwork had released from a hidden valve, in its confused panic, had left the sorry excuse for a man more than black and blue. Greens and yellows and more besides covered parts of the cadaver, as if it were one of the canvases Dhardyn had loved so much.
Neyhus would've had him tarred and lit on fire, showcasing his ironic mind and wit, but one couldn't have everything in an universe crawling with degenerates. At least none of the replacements the limp-shafted monkey had sought for himself had managed to get a child on Mharaya (not that the hag had found better luck in her searches), or thinking of him would've raised his choler again.
There were few dearer feelings to a man than his wrath, but it had its time and place. Soon enough, in the span of a man unaltered by the twisting of genes or the addition of gears and pistons, he would bear his fury freely, and no one eaten from inside by decadence would be left to condemn him.
'It might,' Bramus answered, pulling Neyhus away from his daydreams. The old man was rubbing his chin with two fingers as he glanced upwards, eyeing Clockwork's shards with a dubious look. 'This one didn't grow into the stone, like others of its kind might have - but it did hollow Ararat out, scooping out rock, carving tunnels...'
'Of course,' Neyhus scoffed, drawing the collector's eyes to him. At Mhalvur's surprised, questioning look (to his knowledge, the Othlan had never shown much interest in the history of thinking engines). 'It is only fitting that this vile contraption would eat way at all is solid and natural, and bursting with the earth's bounty.'
Bramus turned peevish at this. 'Would it bother you to appreciate the keys to your kingdom? This thing...diminished as it was, was still a marvel. Would you mock a dead soldier while their corpse was still cooling?'
'Ha!' Neyhus barked, making Bramus put a hand on his hip; his other held the tablet as he waited for elaboration. 'Had it been able to give proper battle, mayhap, but this crazed scrapheap remains the tool it always was. Not even an honest tool, like a sword.'
The part about it being crazed was true enough, the historian supposed. Grandfather Clockwork had catalogued all of its visitors as friends, and when they had fallen upon each other, it had lost its composure: hidden weapons were revealed and fired haphazardly, while robotic guardians fell on whoever they could get their claws on.
Neyhus had initially positioned himself behind his parents, ostensibly to show reverence and protect them from hidden killers if necessary, The two, who hadn't bought it for a moment, shortly had him placed at the front of their party, with their household guards between them and their son. Mhalvur had also been strongly advised to stand beside Neyhus.
Whether the then-heir of Clan Othlan had anticipated this, he'd definitely made good use of it. Dhardyn and Mharaya's attention had slid off him during the battle: Neyhus had crossed swords with the head guard mid-talks, then they had been swarmed by the babbling Clockwork's sentries. Neyhus had taken one down, after being dealt a wound, and had pretended to sob over Mhalvur's supine form as the old man faked injury. Then his mother, an arm mangled and blood streaming down her chest, had come too close, seeing a chance to end the scourge of their line, and...
Truthfully, Bramus had caught little of the swordfight. He'd sprung to his feet, before Clockwork, its shell unfolding, could make more war machines from itself or the mountain. The teaching device, ordinarily meant to freeze whatever software or hardware it pulled information from, had proven too invasive for the old machine, and had pushed it over the brink of existence, into wherever things like Clockwork faded when they could no longer sustain themselves.
Mhalvur found himself ambivalent about the...murder. Euthanasia? A...life, something like one, a great life gone sickly in its twilight, had been ended by his hand. He regretted being unable to preserve Clockwork - how much could he have learned from it, about the world as the engine saw it? -, but who knew what it would've done in its insane grief? Even assuming it didn't topple Ararat and raise an army from the rubble, it could've birthed a thousand other menaces.
And if witnessing a coup had pushed it over the end, then, clearly, the Othlan's golden goose, like their arrangement with it, was too fragile.
A shame.
Bramus sighed, weighing whether he should shelve the matter. 'Let us be off, in any case,' he murmured, though with the cavern's acoustics, he might as well have been shouting. 'Should my predictions prove wrong, we won't make it even if we sprint, but it's better to be safe than sorry.'
Neyhus shook his head, grinning, even as he swaggered over to the entrance. 'That's the problem with you men of letters: you waste so much of your lives pushing pens, you forget what life is really like. What's the point of worrying about things you can't change? No.' His eyes shone, the way they had when he'd revealed his plan to Mhalvur. 'Scurrying away like rats is not the solution here.'
After slowing down so the older man could catch up with him, he tapped the tablet with a thick, rough finger. 'This can make anything the machine knew, can't it?'
'It can teach people to make anything the engine knew,' Bramus corrected. 'Why? Surely you aren't intending to put it to work right here?'
Neyhus' expression was boyish as he shrugged. 'Why not? If you are wrong, we'll be crushed like insects, and that is no man's death. I say we try our luck.'
Luck... 'What about the guards outside?' Mhalvur asked, judging himself lucky they hadn't come looking already. Had no sign of the struggle been perceivable from the mountainside, or were they still on their way? Maybe negotiations with Clockwork usually took longer than this, so they weren't concerned?
'What, no longer sure the mountain is going to fall?' Neyhus asked, voice lazy, eyes lidded.
Bramus almost rolled his. 'Why do you not want to leave, anyway? What is left to do here? I have the data; they,' he waved a hand at the corpse-strewn floor, 'are gone.' Did he want to gloat? Of all the puerile...but then, how many warlord had he cozied up to who hadn't been man-children, at their core?
Neyhus put a heavy hand on Mhalvur's round shoulder, and the collector nearly yelped, knees buckling. 'Let me tell you of what is to come, old friend...'
* * *
The improvised power armour wasn't the worst thing Bramus had walked into potential danger wearing, but that really said more about his lack of fortune than its quality.
The teaching tablet's harness form was a brilliant engineer and metalsmith...but it wasn't magical, not like the artefacts of ages past that had torn the galaxy asunder. It could only work with what it had, not make something from nothing.
So it was that he and Neyhus staggered out of the tunnel wearing the scavenged shells of Clockwork's defenders; not truly power armour, if he was being honest, for they bore the weight of the exoskeletons instead of the suits supporting themselves. They did, could, enhance the wearer's strength, true enough, but only by the crude means of rocket boosters placed almost haphazardly over the armour, to lend more power to a punch or a counterforce when lifting.
The guards who'd stayed looked them up and down, skeptical. Neyhus lifted his visor, smiling through bloody teeth, and held up a hand as the guard commander began demanding an explanation. Neyhus obliged her, only to be met by growing disbelief as he regretfully described his parents' death at the hands of a contraption that had finally given in to its madness.
'You expect me to believe the lord and lady died, just like that, in a place with no witnesses?' the officer asked. 'In a battle you and the thief riding your coattails conveniently survived?'
'My lord,' Neyhus added softly, managing not to quiver in outrage. 'For I am nothing less than that now, woman.'
Her smile was bitter. 'My lord, everyone who knows you knows also of your disdain for those who brought you into the world and made you the man you are.'
'You know so much of me, yet you believe I would lead them to their deaths at the hands of another, like a coward?' the Clan head asked, sounding passably incredulous. 'Surely you jest. I do not scheme. When have I ever slain my enemies in any other way than while staring them in the eye, weapon in hand?'
Before the veteran warrioress could argue further, the mountain path they were on began cracking, shaking as it, and Ararat as a whole, began sinking towards the ground.
For the first time since he'd put the ugly thing on, Bramus was grateful for the exoskeleton's visor. He believed he had a good cards face, but betraying anything at this juncture would ensure his and Neyhus' death, more likely than note. And while the end of an useful pawn was nothing to weep over, he did very much want to stay alive.
The bomb Neyhus had convinced him to make - well, to program the tablet to make - had been a tricky thing to build on the spot: powerful enough to damage the mountain's insides and prompt a slow collapse, but not so destructive as to bring the thing down on their heads in moments. Sure, the exoskeleton's specs suggested they'd survive the rockfall, but Mhalvur had no interest in remaining buried under an avalanche until he died of thrist.
'And if the blast expands too slowly,' the Clan head had said, 'Ararat has always been prone to such rumblings. Why, it's likely what they passed the tin can's destruction as.'
'Landslide!' Neyhus called out, his bass made booming by his suit's speakers. 'Hold onto me!'
Leap made blurringly fast by the explosive power of his propellers, Neyhus seized as many Othlan troops as he could wrap his arm around, with the guard captain (perhaps to keep an eye on him, and a hand? It could give her a chance to kill him if her suspicions remained, provided she had a weapon powerful enough to overcome the armour...) wrapping hers around his neck. It was an awkward sight, no less than the one Bramus found himself dealing with heartbeats later, as he also fell into the role of the alert saviour.
Though the exoskeletons made him and Neyhus many times faster than a man, the "slow" collapse was only such when compared to Greater Ararat's size. If only Clockwork had been built into the smaller peak of the compound volcano...but there was no point carping about it now. They managed to avoid several falling boulders, the size of houses and greater, but right when they reached flat ground, and he and Neyhus threw their charges to safety as gently as they could, as they'd talked, the edge of the rockslide caught up to them.
Minutes later, Bramus was being peeled out of his armour by warily grateful guards, not having to fake his groans of pain at all. He'd be purple as a plum for a while, he wagered, but that was better than death.
Anything was.
Slurring his words a mite, Mhalvur explained that, while the landslide itself was over, the disturbed environment would remain quite dangerous for the foreseeable future, so it would be better to return to the Othlan's inner holdings.
The guards nodded, rolling shoulders and stretching legs; their uniforms might've protected them from a landing that would've pasted unarmoured folk, but they were still shaky. Better than crushed or trapped under the fall of boulders, though, as several of them mumbled. Likely, they were unused to thanking him and Neyhus.
The Othlan leader laughed roughly, telling his troops that this was nothing for a real soldier to worry about, that he and his faithful friend would be well in no time.
Perhaps I underestimated him, Bramus thought. Perhaps there is some cunning buried under that petty viciousness. The story about Dhardyn and Mharaya's deaths had been dog water (what else could Mhalvur have expected after having his suggestions ignored?), true, but the collapse plan, the armour, "sacrificing" themselves to get the soldiers to safety, thus being able to weave their plots and gain sympathy while convalescing...Neyhus might prove not to be stupid, in the end. Not so stupid, after all.
And what end do you seek, boy? Bramus thought. Wealth, women, the power to do as you wish, kill where you want, when you want? Is what you have not enough?
The last question was no condemnation; merely curiosity. Going against Neyhus would only gain him an enemy, if not a strangulation in their shared sickroom. Going along with him...all the treasures of the Milky Way, lost and known, would end up in his hands, where they belonged. Where he could keep them away from the ignorant and the uncaring, all who didn't or couldn't appreciate them.
Months later, a recovering Neyhus stood at a window of his growing palace's throne room, once the ancestral Othlan compound, gazing down at regiment after regiment of marching, power-armoured troopers with an almost fatherly smile. His troops.
Not men, for there were also women within the ranks, along with what the newly-crowned Emperor of Ararat called other sorts: those mutated or altered, genetically, cybernetically or metaphysically, often because the bodies they'd been born with had been unaligned with their minds. Bramus had no quarrel with such folks - their queer minds often produced unique works - but he had no desire to try his Emperor's patience either, friend and Chancellor or not.
Neyhus, Mhalvur reflected, could've recovered in less than a day, after setting up the necessary facilities with the tablet's guidance. But by remaining injured, he'd gained his people's admiration for his fortitude and (Bramus could've laughed) honesty, in the sense he didn't shy from admitting weakness.
'In the end,' the Emperor said, seemingly to himself, though he knew Mhalvur was listening, 'we will be rid of them.'
Bramus nodded absently, chin in hand as he studied a map of the Sol System. He knew what Neyhus meant: as soon as Old Earth, Sol Three as he called it, fell under his sway, all deviants would be done away with. Save for the extraordinarily useful, no women would have a place left in the army, lest they become like his superstitious sow of a mother, while those who loved and lived improperly (the latter category consisting of those who mutilated the proper human form and mind, the former of those who reminded Neyhus of his mild-mannered father, even if they were not drawn to the opposite gender; Bramus was somewhat mystified by the correlation there, but Neyhus often, loudly and heatedly explained how a proper man laid with his woman, or women, and set the pace of lovemaking. The historian supposed the Emperor had grown to dislike anything that deviated from the bond between man and wife, or wives, after learning of his father's tendencies to, ah, spectate) would have no place left in society at all, any more than the faithful did.
Neyhus, who often derided religion as an outdated, hobbling practice that held humanity back, like a coat they'd outgrown, had no problem making use of its trappings. Every day, work crews raised monuments to the Bloody Emperor, so named for blazing across the lands between Ararat, the Atlas Mountains and the Himalayas (soon to be flattened and processed so he could expand his palace). Meanwhile, a service of watchers, trained to detect and culled those who thought wrongly, passed between their fellows hidden in plain sight, with bribes in one hand and threats in the other, depending on how one had failed the Emperor or rebelled against him - a category of actions as broad as those of people Neyhus loathed.
The Bloody brought his hands together, turning to stride towards the table his regent was sitting at. His red cape fluttered as if it made its own wind, while his golden power armour caught the light and made of it a harsh radiance. A golden crown, tipped with crimson, held back Neyhus' dark mane and proclaimed his mastery of his expanding Empire, one he was already sure would stand forever.
'What say you, Chancellor? What then?'
"Then" being wherever after the purge at Little Ararat was done. The memorial made of its larger sibling, for the sake of appearances, irked the Emperor, Bramus knew,, but success demanded sacrifices, and the monument to his parents and their soldiers was planned to be toppled during the mass executions, so he would endure.
'Mars,' Mhalvur replied, placing a finger above the image of the Red Planet. 'With them behind us, the Jovian moons will follow, if only for plenty's sake. The void knows the fractious bastards have never backed down from a war they'd lose.' He huffed. 'I've heard legends of Neptune, too, my Emperor...but we have time.'
Time, he thought, they would need more of. Youth serums were good and all, as were shackled biokinetics, but Mhalvur wished, not for the first time, that bigoted little dullard he'd found himself allied with would be a bit more openminded about transhumanism, if the was already so hypocritical. He didn't want to keep taking time out of his day for immortality checkups, and not only because they'd cut, he was sure, into the time he'd need to order the assassins to silence those who whispered of their Chancellor and Emperor's unending vitality. Dead gods, the skulking bastards already had their hands full scouring the world for psychics and mages and whatever failed, useful experiments remained from the Workers' War.
"For only under the Eternal Empire's yoke can their vile talents be put to good, proper use."
Bramus wondered how many people did not care about the ideological contradictions as long as they got homes and meals and the little pleasures idiots needed to make it through the day.
He scratched at the scruff of his beard. Likely, those who chafed under the mandatory service in the armies and the demands they keep track of suspicious acquaintances found reasons to complain there, too.
They were lucky Old Earth was such a dump most of the chaff would do anything to be lifted up from the irradiated wastelands they'd been left in, since the last time the world broke.
* * *
AN: The next two parts of this arc are going to cover the (highlights of the) Eternal Empire's First Age expansion and fall. This will tie in to the story of DEATH's Third Keeper, which will cover the subsequent Ages alongside Arvhek's.