They came from the streets and the gutters. From the ashes and rotting timbers and beneath the rickety houses of Lowtown. They came from the lesser bazaars of the Midcity, where they begged, forever seeking a purpose. A way to be useful. They snuck out of the tinker’s workshops and warehouses, where they had been stored - quietly rusting - for decades.
The orphans of the Cauldron marched, hobbled, hopped, and crawled through the streets. Some were dragged by their siblings. Some were arthritic from rust rot, or blind from cracked lenses. Many were little more than husks, with bright, shining cores buried deep inside. These were carried.
All answered her call.
The avians and redenites and all the citizens of the Cauldron who were awake in the twee hours of that morning could only watch in curious wonder - or in reverent fear - as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of abandoned constructs made their way through the streets to the Eastern tower. Long, spidering lines of them shuffled through the temple district of the Midcity, winding around and around the base of the tower. This line fed into the tower’s depths. Up the ancient stairs. Two legged constructs had to hop up the steps, and shambling headless things dragged more rusted bodies behind them. Constructs with treads and overly-complicated gears and levers, exposed and rusting in the open air.
The line of orphan constructs waited, inhumanly patient. Waited for their turn to enter the makeshift workshop, at the top of the Eastern tower, where a god was performing miracles.
The workshop was a temple, converted with layers of canvas laid down to protect the seastone floors (or rather, to protect the machines from the floor), and dozens of gas lanterns for light. Tools and wooden tables and chairs were strewn about the center of the vast, open space of the temple. And already, there were growing piles of scrap and salvage and half-working limbs along the walls and seastone columns.
Khadam herself was laying on the ground, working on the underside of a dog-sized cargo construct. She held a ball-peen hammer in one hand. In the other, the most primitive blowtorch she had ever used. A screwdriver was clamped between her teeth. The muscles and the hardwired implants in her arm flexed as she tapped the last casing for a cargo construct back into place. It looked like a headless raptor, with powerful hind legs and short forelegs. Its body was balanced, so it could carry a heavy load on its back and still jog quickly. Finally, she squeezed the blowtorch in bursts, sealing up the cargo constructs’ body.
Finished, she pulled herself away from the construct and sat back on her heels, and sighed. Wiping the grease and sweat from her forehead.
The cargo construct tested its body. Lifting its “neck” up and down, lifting its legs one by one. It turned, and bowed before her. Nuzzling her gently.
“You’re welcome,” she said, her words muffled by the screwdriver still in her mouth. Khadam took a stencil brush from a jar of black paint, and slathered a number on the construct’s side. One hundred forty-seven. Then, she pointed with the brush towards the door, “Go wait with the others.”
As One Forty-seven loped out, ecstatic over its newly calibrated legs, Khadam took the screwdriver out of her mouth, and shouted, “Number Twelve! Where are you?”
A drone, as small as her fist, sprung to life. It’s rotors spun excitedly, and it whizzed over from where it was perched, sitting in the open-handed statue of some human. Twelve hovered in front of Khadam, its movements twitching slightly in the air. There was a slight hitch in its rotors, a rapid, double-clicking that happened every few seconds.
“How many are there now?” Khadam asked.
Twelve nodded with its whole body, and flung itself out the nearest window. Khadam stared at the sunlight filtering back in. Motes of dust shining bright as they filtered down to the floor. Canvas tarps scattered with metal parts and tools and jars of grease and wires - none of it arranged in any particular order. Just how she liked it. The only thing she didn’t like was that the forest of gas lanterns - hanging from portable, iron poles, were growing hot. The avian priests, who had answered her every request, could only apologize for the heat.
“And you haven’t invented air conditioning yet?” Khadam had asked, not too hopefully. “Or heatless lighting?”
They had not.
Even with three of her already-repaired constructs fanning her with giant leaves, she was still dripping with sweat. At least the avian priests had given her buckets of ice, and cold spring water that now sat, dripping their condensation on a rough-cut wooden table. And a gentle breeze blew in from the ornately-cut windows that surrounded the temple, carrying with it the fresh sweetness of vegetation that now mingled with the tang of rusted metal and her own sweat.
While she waited, Khadam wiped her hands on another grease rag, and tossed it over her shoulder. It landed on a statue of a man, with his head bowed low. She scooped ice with a glass, filled it with water, and gulped it down. The chill hurt her teeth in the best possible way. Halfway through the second glass, Number Twelve buzzed back through the window like a hummingbird, and Khadam felt a nudge on her implants. Twelve was offering her a packet, which she opened.
“Wow.”
Via her implants, Khadam could see an image. The line of broken constructs extended all the way out into the Midcity, almost to the central vium that carved the city in half. Foot bound traffic struggled to pass through all the machines, just standing there.
“So many,” Khadam heaved a sigh. “I guess that’s a good problem to have.”
This was not a problem she could solve on her own. Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to.
Khadam turned to face the stairwell, cluttered with constructs. Her movement seized the attention of all the constructs in the line, running all the way down the winding steps. She cupped her hands together, and shouted, “If you have high-quality manipulators, I want you at the front of the line! I want precision over torque, okay? I don’t care about independent mobility. I don’t care if your legs are locked, or broken, or missing. I want good hands - everyone else, move back!”
There was a machine shuddering as dozens, hundreds of constructs appraised each other, sizing up their neighbors. The line began to churn, as the whole army of machines traded places. She walked down the newly-formed line, selecting the constructs she thought had the best chance of helping her.
As the sun climbed higher, staining the floor with gold, Khadam built her new assembly line. Twelve constructs ran parts back and forth, while she tuned and trained a haggard crew of delicate-fingered machines. Some were so broken, she had to bolt their mangled torsos onto tables, just to keep them upright. Rodeiro would’ve laughed, but not before he screamed: Using wood to support metal? What’s next, Khadam? Bamboo hammers? Gloves made of paper?
By the late evening, the assembly line was a halting dance of machines that went on without her. The constructs with delicate manipulators did finer work than her own fingers could, so she simply walked through the lines, spot checking for problems. The more constructs they fixed, the more constructs she added to the assembly. They soldered compartments, rebundled wires into harnesses, or cannibalized parts from one construct to repair another.
Most of the constructs had one of two cores, both from some group called Lindstrand Systems and Holdings. One was a small, ball-shaped orb she could fit in the palm of her hand, and the other was a larger sphere made for more complicated computing. The avians (or some other primitive mechanic) built the constructs’ bodies around each core, but the integration was surprisingly effective. Almost all the cores were still brimming with light. The dead ones, she piled in a corner.
In another corner, Khadam reserved every part she thought she might use to build a printer. She had no plastic, so she’d have to rely on crude metals like aluminum and basic steel. But the printer’s extruders and possessors both required a certain kind of alloy. One that these constructs lacked in large amounts. She had a whole pile of limbs and casings and half-demolished underskeletons from the constructs, but no way to strip them. Not with these basic hand tools, at least.
Khadam couldn’t hear anything over the symphony of whirring motors and clicking packs of servos and hydraulic limbs stretching out, hammering pieces into place, layering adhesives or melting parts together. And still, the line of constructs ran out of the workshop, and down the steps of this tower.
She hadn’t eaten all day, and wasn’t planning on it, until two avians stepped into the room.
One, a priest, an old woman with a long, graceful neck and a beak to match, carrying a tray of refreshments. More ice and water, fresh from the springs.
A plate of nuts and two kinds of stone fruit, and some kind of bread, baked in bite-size portions. But the priest’s smile faltered, and her eyes widened in horror, as she witnessed the unholy mess Khadam had created. The machine parts, scattered across the floor. The fumes from the gas lanterns and the grease and crude oil, which made a heady cocktail that filled the whole temple. Little tails of smoke had been pouring up all day, making a haze that clung to the ceilings, snowing pats of black dust on the windows and statues. Black rags were everywhere, and more than a few gallons of black, tarry puddles congealing on the floors. There were even scorch marks on the wall where one of the constructs with a bad eye sensor missed with its blowtorch.
“Divine One, we brings gifts of nourishment- Gods above! What happened here?” The avian priest exclaimed over the whirring, soldering, hissing sound of the machines. “What has happened to the shrine? Are those grease stains on the empty throne? And who broke off the Beholder’s hands?!”
Her voice rose with each observation, quivering with righteous indignation.
But a strong, even voice came from behind the priest, cutting her off. “Be calm, Susila. Can’t you see she’s working?”
The Queen stood shoulder to shoulder with the priest. She was carrying something unwieldy, covered in a linen cloth, in both hands.
“But the temple! My Queen!” The tray - and her feathers - were shaking, so that all the dishes rattled, “Never, in all my days have I seen anything this disastrous in the house of the gods. Never! Not even when the cyrans-”
“Susila,” the Queen’s voice was sharp. And then, soft. “Perhaps you should leave me to speak with our divine guest.”
“But, My Queen. I cannot allow-”
A hard, yellow stare from the Queen rendered the priest silent. Susila swallowed, bowed her head. Left the tray on the nearest table, balancing it on top of a pile of metal construct innards. Took one last look around the temple. And departed with a haughty hmph!
The Queen excused the priest’s outburst with a dismissive shake of her head.
“Didn’t think I’d make such a mess,” Khadam said. “Where did all these constructs come from?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I was about to ask you the same,” the Queen said. “The whole city is talking about it. They’re crawling out from the junk piles, from the underway. There’s a line of them marching up from the Wash. One of the factory owners was trying to claim his constructs were quitting in droves, but he always talks.”
Khadam shrugged. She’d sent out a call, using the Oracle to amplify her impulse. She’d expected a handful of constructs, but this was so much better. For her, at least.
“Is it a problem?” Khadam asked.
Ryke bowed deep at the waist, her crest feathers, patterned mahogany- and milky-colors, flaring up the back of her head. “Nothing you do, Divine One, could ever be a problem.”
Right, Khadam thought. Keeping her lips tight. Wait until you find out why I’m here.
“I prayed to the Oracle,” Ryke said, her strong, almost musical voice carrying over the machines. “I asked how I could help. He gave me this, to give to you. The Oracle said it was the last one in his inventory. I didn’t even know the Oracle kept an inventory.”
“Thanks,” Khadam said coldly. And turned her back on Ryke, turned back to her assembly line.
Maybe it was because she had spent the last few months in perfect isolation, with only a secretly murderous machine as a companion. Or maybe, because she saw little value in speaking to this primitive creature. Or, was it the fact that this creature still had her city, and all her people, and Khadam had only herself?
Whatever the reason, Khadam hoped that Ryke would leave her gift, whatever it was, and just let Khadam focus on her work.
“Have I offended you, oh, immortal one?”
“No,” Khadam said, picking up a wrench and tweaking one of the construct’s armbands. It had eight of them, and they kept coming loose. The gaskets were falling to pieces. “Normally, I work alone. It’s kinda my thing.”
“Oh,” Ryke said. “Me too.”
And Khadam stopped, mid-wrench. Because she believed Ryke. Something about the tone of her voice.
“But I want to help,” Ryke said.
“Why? You don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
“Because nothing could be more important than the work of a god.”
Khadam turned around. Squinted at Ryke. “You really believe that, don’t you? You really think I’m some sort of god.”
“How can I not?” Ryke gestured at the assembly line with her arms, still laden with the Oracle’s cloth-wrapped gift. “You have constructs building other constructs. Our tinkers have tried for centuries to do this, but always the constructs refuse. And in a single day, you have the whole city’s machines, working for you. As if they know you already.”
“You just have to know how to talk to them, that’s all.”
“And the Oracle? The Oracle responds to your every word. Our priests have prayed to him for ages, and he remains silent. And look at this,” Ryke held up the cloth bundle, “I don’t even know what this is.”
With one feathered hand, she untucked the cloth, revealing an object that looked like a hollowed-out arm. The hand of it was a closed fist, the metal laced with perfect, geometric lines.
Khadam’s eyes went wide. She took the arm - a real exosleeve - carefully from Ryke’s hands, “I haven’t seen one of these in decades.”
Her eyes danced over the sleeve, admiring the hard, flexible fabric. The microwires running through strips of liquid metal, from the tips of the fingers all the way up to the shoulder. Inside the sleeve, dozens of impulse nodes were waiting to attach.
As Khadam slipped her arm into the sleeve, the liquid metal squeezed around her forearm, her arm muscles, all the way up to her shoulders, cementing it in place. The moment her fingers reached the end of the glove, the “fist” of metal opened up, as if they were her own fingers. Except this fist had twenty-four separate digits, each one ready to shift into a range of tools at a whim. With this, she could cut, tap, trim, strip, vice, drive, weld, and make fine manipulations with a surprising amount of torque… all at the same time. Not to mention the cold torches.
Khadam pressed her thumb and finger together, and four of the sleeve’s digits formed a pyramid shape. A narrow jet of blue light appeared at their tips, and frost condensed on the digits. Turned the tips of the metal white.
“Miraculous,” the Queen gasped.
“Yes. I guess it is.”
She had forgotten how hard it was to get anything done with only these primitive, hand-powered tools. Her arms were sore and her wrists ached from all the wrenching and hammering and driving. Even the scrappiest of the alien-made constructs - cobbled together from iron and copper wires attached to ancient, salvaged cores - even they could outwork her.
“What are you working on, up here?” the Queen said, turning her great yellow eyes on Khadam. And for a frozen moment, Khadam felt like this regal avian, this person, could almost see into her thoughts.
“Not sure, I can explain,” Khadam said. Not sure I want to.
“You are surrounded by believers, Divine One.”
That’s exactly the problem. More people meant more questions. And if they find out that I came all this way, all this time, to kill their beloved savior? Then what?
But Khadam had questions of her own.
“I’ve been meaning to ask. You keep calling me Divine. A god. What, exactly, do you worship? What do you want from me?”
“The same thing all beings want. Salvation. To become more than we are.”
“Salvation?” Khadam said. “Is that what he promised you?”
“Who?”
She almost said the Herald, but stopped herself. “Poire.”
“No,” Ryke said honestly. “No, he did not. He was, how do I say this... reluctant.”
“How do you mean?” Khadam said. She was leaning forward now, desperate to gather any scrap of information she could. “What is he like?”
“You don’t know him?”
Khadam almost said, “Why would I know him? They were billions of us.” But the Oracle had warned her of revealing too much to these simple people.
Only, Khadam was beginning to wonder. Are they simple? Or is it just their technology that grounds them so far behind?
“No. I didn’t know him. But I need to.”
“Of course,” Ryke said, nodding with understanding. “He’s all you have left.”
Khadam nodded. Keeping her mouth shut.
“He’s...” Ryke paused. Her huge, golden eyes scanned down Khadam’s body. Again, she felt like she was being analyzed from the inside out. “He’s quite different from you. In general, you look similar. Other than your coloration, and the pieces of metal in your body, and your head fur.”
“Hair,” Khadam corrected.
“Hair. Yes. Apart from that, your composure is vastly distant from his. Poire is… well, he acts like a fledgling. He can smart, in moments. Petulant in others. Quick to anger, impulsive. But you, Khadam, are much more like how we imagined the gods would be.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know how to say it, without offending.”
“Say it anyway.”
“You seem sharper than him. A true confidence, in your every move. You seem like you know why you’re here. When Poire came to us, he was confused. Lost. He ran to the ruins of his old home. He doubted us, he fled from us at every opportunity. And his Guardian, the one who was destined to protect the Savior Divine’s life… the two of them fought like hatchlings. Worse.” the Queen’s head turned toward the window. Her voice was wistful, “I can still see Eolh pouting, on the balcony of the leaning tower.”
“Eolh? His Guardian?”
Ryke look at her, confused. “You don’t know that, either?”
“Know what?”
“How odd. How wrong we were. We assumed you would be more familiar with the prophecy. Poire didn’t seem to understand either. ” Ryke seemed troubled by this, and Khadam could see her sinking into her own thoughts.
Keep her talking, she thought. She had learned more about Poire in the last five minutes than in the last five days.
“Tell me more.”
“The Savior Divine was foretold, long ago. The Oracle himself said that one day, humanity would return in the form of a savior, who would reclaim the worlds as they once were. To lift us all in your divine embrace.”
“Ah,” Khadam said. Thinking about what a very lofty - and vague - dream that was. “So… did he?”
“Yes, but,” Ryke shook her head. “Yes.”
“What?”
“Excuse me, Divine One. But for a god, Poire is also a fool.”
Ryke clapped her beak shut, as if she was appalled she had let the words out of her mouth. But Khadam couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’ve seen it, too, then?”
“Yes. Sometimes a fool is just a fool. But sometimes… Well, Poire woke to reason at the last possible minute. When my city was already in flames. He destroyed the Magistrate’s power, the tyrant who had taken over my city. I don’t know how he did it, but he saved us. And when it was over, when all my people were safe, he still could not accept what he was. He is stuck, in another time. Another age. He seemed to know nothing of his purpose, or anything, really, about his people. And, just like before, he ran off again. Against my deepest wishes, he disappeared with his Guardian, and delivered himself directly into the Emperor’s grasp.”
“I take it you’re not great friends with the Emperor?”
“The cyrans tortured my people. Held us hostage, in our own home, while they spent the last decade slowly taking everything from us. Our ancestors have been here for centuries. No, the Emperor and I are not great friends. But I refuse to call him my enemy. He has offered a peace of sorts. He has gifted us the ritual of the Gate, so that we may control its opening. But he is so strong. The cyrans believe him a god, though the cyrans are more lenient with their religion than the rest of us.” Ryke was almost spitting her hatred by then. She was reared to her full height, her crest feathers towering over Khadam.
She lowered the feathers, apologizing meekly. But Khadam almost liked it, when she went all out like that. The Queen seemed so much more real, somehow, when she let herself go. Less like she was mimicking a human, and more like she was her own person.
“If they think he’s a god, does that mean he’s human?” Khadam said.
“Who knows? His body appears to be, I’ve heard. But none have ever seen his face. They claim he’s been alive for millennia. Worryingly, there are records indicating this is true, but I believe there still might be some other explanation.”
“You think he’s a false god?”
“I do,” Ryke said, keeping her voice low. And then, she steeled herself. And said it again, louder, as if this were some truth she had held quiet for many years, “I think he’s a false god. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Khadam shrugged, “It’s possible, I guess. He could be a guide, corrupted. Or maybe something else. What is his empire like?”
“The cyrans outnumber us, ten to one. Their military has grown dramatically over the years. But they don’t need soldiers to kill us. They could destroy us with a single one of their ill-gotten ships. Old tech. Human-made.”
“I see,” Khadam said. She was thinking of the nomads, back on that nameless planet. A whole species, wiped out. All because she needed to power a gate. And it hadn’t even mattered, because Poire was there to open the gate for her.
“The cyrans believe the Emperor has a destiny. They say he will ascend. And then, he will return, to take the cyrans with him.”
Another kind of salvation, Khadam thought. How is that different from what you believe?
“And, Poire? How did this Emperor react to Poire?”
“Last I heard, when Poire came to them, the Emperor opened his arms and proclaimed that his long-lost sibling had returned. But there was an event on Cyre. Something to do with the scar, there.”
“There’s a scar on Cyre?” Khadam was suddenly tense. Her hands, clenched, too hard. “What happened?”
“They said it was cracked. I don’t know what that means. Do you?”
“It’s not good.”
“We don’t know where they went after that. Poire, or Eolh. But my agents have been working with an expatriate of ours, over there. An exile. She claims they left for another planet, via the Emperor’s gates.”
“The Emperor has a light extractor?” Khadam’s voice almost caught in her throat. The more she learned about this Emperor, the more her worry grew. Perhaps she wasn’t the only other human left. But why would he let the Herald slip through his fingers?
“What is a light extractor?”
“You said he controls the gates. Right? Which means he must have access to light.” Khadam put her palm to her cheek, rubbing the side of her jaw as she thought. She began to pace a large circle around the temple as she talked, stepping over the grease puddles and metal parts strewn along the floor. “Or maybe there’s another gate feeding into his. Or perhaps he’s using old reserves. But where did he get them? It might explain why the gate here opened so infrequently. Still, if he’s got light...” Khadam stopped, halfway to the window.
“You know what?” Khadam turned to the Queen. “I think we might be on the same side here.”
Ryke merely blinked at her, as if to say, of course we are, but far too polite to actually give voice to the words.
Khadam ignored that. Instead, she lifted her sleeve arm, and started a quick diagnostic. Each of the twenty-four fingers flexed individually, their tips melting through a series of shapes.
The Queen’s eyes were filled with wonder. “How…?” She started to ask.
“You want to know what I’m doing up here?”
“We thought you were fixing our constructs. Are you not?”
“Yes. That. Well. Actually,” Khadam pressed her lips together in an awkward grimace. “I need them.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
Ryke seemed offput by this, but only for a moment. She bowed, saying, “They are yours, Divine One. What are you going to do with them?”
“I’m going to give you back your gate.”
“Apologies, Divine One. I must not have made myself clear. The Emperor already gave us control.”
They really don’t know anything.
Khadam walked over to the window, to glance down on the city spread out far below. At the gate, sitting in the center of the Midcity, where all the roads seemed to converge.
“He may have given you access, but access is only part of the problem. The true power of the gate is, well, power. You need energy to use the gate. We call this energy light. And right now, your city has none of it. This Emperor, on the other hand, appears to have enough. Which means he’s getting it from somewhere.”
“So he lied to us?”
“Technically, no. But he did withhold that one little crucial fact. The good news is, he did give you access. And I know a way to tap into the gates power, and siphon some off. Only a fraction. But each time you open the gate, those fractions will add up. Until you have enough power to open the gate yourself.”
Behind her, Ryke’s beak was clamped shut. The avian was rigid with barely-contained eagerness. All her crest feathers were standing on end, and Khadam couldn’t help but think what a beautiful crown her feathers made.
“What do you need from me, Goddess?”
Khadam’s gaze drifted down to the huge swathes Lowtown that were still just blackened, charred heaps.
“I need more room.”