Khadam gave her newborn factory a ceiling made of glass, because the gas lanterns just weren’t cutting it. This way, sunlight might pour down and her armies of half-deteriorated constructs could spend more energy on the work. The redenite overseers, with their snouted masks and deeply-tinted goggles, made no complaints. They were just happy to be working for a god.
Khadam was no architect, and the design of her factory reflected that fact. She based it on the basic modular production facility that was popular in Rodeiro’s clan. While this design was less efficient, it was easy to add on. When Khadam realized she needed another forge here, or had to double the size of the iron works there, it was as simple as adding new walls and extending the ceiling. Most of Lowtown was still in ruins, and there was plenty of room to expand.
But every new addition came with its own set of problems. Crude oil was a terrible fuel source, and required smoke stacks that poisoned the air over the factory. If the people of Lowtown disliked what she was doing, they were awfully quiet about it.
Most likely, she had the Queen to thank for that.
All the while, a question overlays the building pressure in her thoughts: will Ryke tell them why I’m here? Will she let them know that I have only come all this way - all this time - to take their “savior” out of existence?
The Destroyer’s android had come to Gaiam, and let Khadam’s secret be known. But had done nothing else, so far.
So, the question hung unanswered around her neck, like a tightening noose. If the people find out, what would they do?
And what will I have to do to them?
So far, nothing.
Another distraction, that’s all it amounted to. So Khadam threw herself into the work, spending too many hours, day and night, walking around her factory and overseeing the work. Double-checking the carvings that were drawn with utter precision across each of the spikes. The metal costs of building them was immense, but they were nearing the end.
If only the damn things would stay up.
Teams of constructs had to haul them through the city, to each of the seven standing towers. In Lowtown, it was easy, given that most of it had burned down only a few short months ago.
But on the higher tiers of the city, they had to navigate tons of metal through cramped, curving, narrow streets. They scraped on the sides of buildings, took out glass windows, and in one place they had to saw down a tree to get the spike through to the northeastern tower.
Once at the towers, the constructs had to crane the spikes up to the top. Fortunately, Khadam’s redenites were masters of lifting weight up steep inclines. All but two of the towers were now tipped with a ring of these spikes, so the high crenelations looked as though they had sprouted a set of metal thorns. Together, they would interlock in a system designed to redirect any incoming light, allowing the entire Cauldron to act as a siphon for all that raw energy.
She would have power again. Not crude oil and gas, but true Light.
But, again, Khadam was no architect. And they were using primitive metals, prone to rust and heat and splitting open. This week, two of the larger spikes had dislodged - one in the Midcity, and one over the Cleft - crashing down to the ground. No one in the Cleft was injured, but several houses were leveled in the Midcity, some with avians still inside.
She hadn’t meant to kill them. She hadn’t meant to feel guilty for it, either. Khadam told herself she didn’t have time to mourn the loss of a few xenos. They only live for a few, short seventy years or so, anyway. But only work could drown out the guilt and the fury, directed at herself.
Why didn’t you grab a printer before going into that gate? Stupid. Even a pound of liquid metal...
But the more she worked, the more problems she found with her designs. The ancient mortar on the towers was cracking open, and she had no tools to drill into the human-made metal beneath. Worse, the harder she tried to support the foundation of the spikes, the more she began to worry if she should rebuild the towers from the bottom up. Weeks, or months, added to the schedule. Far too slow. He could be halfway across the universe by then.
So, no matter the cost, Khadam pushed forward.
And for the last twelve hours, she stalked around the factory floor, making too-minor adjustments on the last light spike, delaying the delivery because she knew the foundation bolting needed to be perfect, and she hadn’t double-checked the carvings, and she didn’t mean to kill them.
She didn’t mean for anyone to die, except for him.
Destruction untold. That’s what she was trying to stop. A few avian lives could never amount to the value of her work.
Khadam’s implants were slotted over her eyes, shielding them from the brilliant sparks, as she walked through the factory. A gas mask covered her mouth and nose, protecting her from the fumes. The air screamed with the shrill grating of grinders polishing metal. Her constructs were running near their limits. Somewhere outside, there was a junk pile of broken limbs and powerless bodies, waiting for maintenance. They would have to keep waiting. The plan was to petition the Emperor to open the gate soon, and Khadam didn’t want to miss her opportunity.
One construct was leaning over the light spike, its long delicate arms jerking back and forth. Two blowtorches, one in each hand, carved the geometric pattern, the logic instructions designed to confuse the gate, and send its excess out to the towers. Only, the pattern was wrong.
“No!” she shouted for the hundredth time that day. “No, not like that! It has to be exact, like this.” Khadam waved aside the construct, and climbed up onto the curving edge of the spike. She straddled the metal, and warmed up the coldtorch embedded in her exosleeve.
“The pattern must be exact o the nanometer,” she shouted. “Look!”
She drew the pattern with her mind first, and the sleeve guided her arm to the exact degree. The construct turned its spherical head, fitted atop a slender, half-rusted body, and followed her motions.
These machines had endured thousands of years of neglect. Ancient cores, cannibalized and shoved into bodies made of the crudest metals imaginable. Tin and iron and steel filled with impurities, with copper and gold wires, though the latter was rare. Their motions were jerky and imprecise, no matter how much maintenance she gave them. Honestly, it was a miracle she had gotten this far with these machines.
The construct sing-songed a chime, confirming that it understood her instructions. She stood, and watched it continue the pattern.
When satisfied, Khadam resumed her stalking around the tip of the spike, headed down towards the main mast, which was where the foundation would attach. Another glaring error caught her attention, but before she could make the correction, a drone zipped down from the ceiling. Number Twelve, with his rotors holding him in a twitchy, hovering pattern, idled right in front of her.
“What is it?” She snapped, her voice muffled by her gas mask.
Number Twelve dipped backwards, like an animal cowering in fear.
Khadam sighed, and held out her bio hand, letting the drone perch on her palm. “Sorry, Twelve. You didn’t deserve that.”
Twelve buzzed its rotors at her, nudging a warning into her mind.
“Who’s here? I told her-” Khadam jerked her head around. The slots covering her eyes lifted, letting her see through the sparks and the shadows and the light playing through the glass ceiling above.
She saw the two of them, standing on the floor of her factory: the Queen of the Avians, and the android.
My enemy.
Khadam pointed at the five nearest constructs. “You, you, and all of you. Follow me.”
They peeled away from their work, rolling their wheels or clunking their mechanical legs and turned to follow her. Constructs with pneumatic arms and vice-like clamps for hands, constructs with hammers and drivers. Crude weapons, but more than enough in case something happened. She hoped. And if nothing else, Khadam had a few tools in her exosleeve…
Ryke saw them coming. She made a sweeping bow, as if that would somehow absolve her of this action. “Divine One-” she started to say, but Khadam cut her off with a wave of her sleeve, all the wires stretching and the liquid metal contorting around her arm.
“I told you to keep that machine away from me.”
Her sharp tone had no effect on the Queen. Ryke stood back up, unruffled. “Laykis is a friend, Divine One. She is here to help.”
“She is here to make me doubt my mission.”
“Is your mission worth doubting, then?” The android’s voice was a smooth, digital clicking. Designed to be obviously not human, but her words were still so full of those nuanced shapes.
“I wasn’t talking to you, androfex.”
“Please!” Ryke spread her wings out, splaying all her rich brown colors in a wide, feathery wall. “Please. Are we not on the same side here?”
Both Laykis and Khadam answered at the same time, “No.”
Khadam and the android locked eyes.
It was Laykis who spoke first, “This one is singular in her purpose. Our Savior Divine is at risk, as long as she stays her course.”
“Have you corrupted your core, androfex? What savior is there? None. You should know this most of all. Tython was at the beginning of everything.”
“Exactly,” Laykis nodded, as if this somehow confirmed her beliefs.
“He saw him. We all saw him. I have dreamed of nothing but his face, since the start.”
“He is only a child.”
“He is the Herald of Ruin, machine. As long as he lives, all life and all existence is only a hair’s breadth from utter destruction. Or has he poisoned your mind, somehow, this child? Tell me what madness have I awoken to, that even the machines have forgotten why humanity is gone. There is no savior.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“He saved your life, didn’t he?” the android said.
Khadam opened her mouth to argue, but Ryke was first. “Laykis,” she chided, “It is not our rightful place to question the gods. What did Poire tell you to do?”
And, to Khadam’s surprise, the android actually seemed subdued by this statement. Her machine eyes dimmed, and she bowed her head. “I was sent to serve.”
“Do you question his decisions?”
“Constantly,” Laykis said, “But Your Majesty is correct.”
Before Khadam could revel in this minor victory, the Queen wheeled on her, saying, “And you-”
Khadam squeezed her fist in her exosleeve, automatically. She could hear the outrage in the Queen’s voice, see it in the way her crest feathers quivered.
“The stars open up before you, Divine One, yet you have dedicated yourself to destroying the one who was sent to help me people. He is our Savior. Why do you say that he is not? You have come to us, and kept your purpose hidden. If this is your will, then it will be done, but all I ask is that you let us understand.”
Khadam could only shake her head. How could she explain all that ever was to these primitive people? They worshiped her. Believed her a god. And even when the android came, and accused Khadam of intent to kill their Savior Divine, still the Queen worshiped her.
If only I could show them what I’ve seen. But no, Khadam would not wish the dreams upon anyone.
At first, they were a wonder. Dreams of the future. Future sight, often inconsequential. Khadam had seen a tree, about to fall, hours before it happened. Every human had the same experience - too many times to be coincidence. It saved lives. It saved entire planets. And they spread to every living human being. Even those who fled into the deepest isolation, many galaxies away, had the visions.
And then, the dreams turned dark. Not overnight, but over centuries. Dreams of destruction, of all life turning to dust. All matter, becoming nothing.
And with the dark dreams, came the disease. The bones became brittle. The mouth, dry. And blood turned black in the veins, crawling in your skin. It did not matter what humanity did, no amount of cryosleep or isolation or anti-aging manipulation could hope to stem the disease. It seemed to come at random, and once the disease took root, it was only a matter of time.
The only prevention was to shun those who were already sick. Thus, humanity fractured again and again. Governments became cities, became clans. Became agents, wandering the stars alone.
When Khadam elected to enter cryosleep, all those millennia ago, nobody understood anything about the disease - except for one thing: it would not stop until he was dead. So the dreams said.
Humanity understood this. But now, there was no one left to understand.
“You can’t know,” Khadam said, “Unless you’ve seen the visions.”
“We’ve had prophets before,” Ryke offered. “Many who claimed to have visions. Some of doom, others of salvation.”
“Multiply your prophets, Ryke. Imagine if every single person in the Cauldron shared those visions. And you knew they were true. Every single avian, every single redenite, even the xenos from Cyre and every other planet. That’s how it was for us. We all shared the same dream, the end of our universe. All the stars fade to black. We have seen the last of our cold, lifeless planets - once the pride and joy of our people - crumble into nothing. I don’t ask why the sun sheds light, and yet I know it does. I don’t ask why I must breathe oxygen, and yet I know I do. And if he is left to live, there will be nothing left. That is it. That is all I know.”
Ryke narrowed her golden eyes, stroked a finger across the crack of her beak, contemplating this for a long moment. The android’s eyes were burning holes into Khadam, but she ignored her.
“Well,” Ryke said, “Our prophets said their visions came from the gods. So, where do yours come from?”
Khadam clenched her mouth shut. Poire had asked much the same thing, and millions of others before him.
But there was no answer.
The visions came from the Light. Or the Light came, because of the visions. Or the Light had nothing to do with the visions, whatsoever. Or…
Humanity was dying when Khadam left the world behind. She never heard an answer that satisfied, and if someone had figured it out while she was in coldsleep... Well, where were they?
Where was the answer?
“The visions were always right,” Khadam said. “We saw our cities fall, before it happened. We saw our own deaths, before they came. And we saw the stars, begin to darken. They never led us wrong.”
“If I were to tell a lie,” the Queen said, “I would first tell a thousand truths.”
But Khadam could only shake her head. She had heard it all before. What if...? Or maybe...? And what about...?
The visions told her that the Herald would be awake. And so he was.
“My Maker said it was too easy. He did not believe these visions.”
“Of course he didn’t!” Khadam shouted, eager to seize on something she did have an answer for. “Tython was one of the first to run. There is—there was—no end to the doubters. But they died, all the same, your Maker included, and none gave a better answer. Why else would we dream of his face? Why else would we see him, always, at the end of all things?”
“A lie,” Ryke said. “Is it possible?”
“It is,” Khadam said. She ran the fingers of her left hand over the exosleeve, feeling the twisting, muscular metal. “Of course, it’s possible. What then? Should we reopen the thousand-year debate, and do nothing about it? You want to understand? I have only one truth to act on. Everything is gone. Everyone. I must act.”
“No,” Laykis said, so firmly that Khadam couldn’t help but clench her exofist. The cold torch hummed to life in her palm. Her cadre of constructs jerked, ready to defend.
But Laykis made her attack with words, “Your data is insufficient. And your current course of action is reckless.”
“Humanity is dead, machine. Your Maker is dead. There is no more data.”
“Untrue. Humanity may be dead, but your memories remain. They have been gathered by those who watch. The Historians, Khadam. You must see their Black Library.”
“What is that?”
“They made their home in a dam built for the Light, long before the Emperor ever came to Cyre. I believe they were created for this purpose. To maintain the dam, and to build the Library.”
“A light dam?” Khadam couldn’t help but think of dam, over that nameless planet. Crumbling into the scar as it cracked open. “There’s a light dam over Cyre?”
“It will be difficult to get there,” Laykis said, “Without the Historian’s permission. And without arousing the Emperor’s attention.”
“And what do you expect me to find there, machine?”
“Enough,” she said, “Enough to make you doubt.”
Khadam’s nostrils flared, her pulse pounded in her skull. This is why they came here? To distract me from my work?
They have no idea how little time is left.
Khadam opened her exofist. A dangerous, blue light glowed in her palm. She could feel it now, the power running from the wires on her shoulder, all the way down her arm. Humming with Light. All it would take to destroy this android was a single touch...
“Reckless,” the android shook her head again. “I would not do that.”
“Why not?” Khadam growled.
“Because I know where he is.”
Khadam froze with her arm extended out.
“If you destroy me, oh great and lost god, you will never find him. And if you think you can tear open my core, be warned. I am made by Tython.”
“Tython is dead.”
“And yet, Tython’s own daughter still walks the many worlds. Divine One, you must know what I know. All say that humanity is dead, even you. But I say it is not.”
And here, the android bowed her head. Leaving herself open to Khadam’s whim.
She calls me Divine One, Khadam thought. This androfex who was half primitive metal, and half masterpiece. Tython’s own daughter, still as perfect as the day she was made.
“Go to the Library, Khadam. Read from the Unfinished Book. If you do, I will tell you where he is.”
Khadam extinguished her fist. “How do I get there?”
“I will help you.”
Of course you will.
***
Three days later, the Cauldron lay empty. Huge caravans of xenos, with wagons and packbeasts and too much baggage, evacuated through the Cleft, a process which took days.
Now, the factory lay open, like a carcass that had given up all its meat. All seven towers, and the Cleft itself, were decorated with rings of light spikes. Each one, dazzlingly decorated with those geometric carvings.
The spikes would hold, this time. And if they didn’t, at least there were no more people in the city.
A hot, wet wind blew up from the Cauldron, covering Khadam with sweat and dew. The three of them stood atop the northernmost tower, Asaiyam’s temple the Queen called it, and they surveyed the city below. Eight huge, metal spikes radiated out from the tip of the tower, each one wide enough to walk on until it tapered down to a conical point.
From here, they could see the goods stacked high on the gate. Ostensibly, they were a gift to the Emperor from the Queen herself. In reality, it was an excuse to power up the gate.
“Are you sure we will be safe up here?” Ryke asked for the dozenth time.
“Reasonably,” Khadam said.
“Reason is relative,” Laykis said, but there was no hint of acid nor anger in her voice. She was merely stating the fact. Still, it bothered Khadam that this construct, the Herald’s own android, could so easily agree to work alongside her, as if the fate of all the worlds didn’t depend on the information stored in her core.
“Yeah, well,” Khadam said, “Neither of you needs to be up here.”
“This is my city,” the Queen said.
“You do know how wrong this could go, right?”
“I have watched the Cauldron burn before. This time, no one will die.”
Khadam blinked at her. She really doesn’t know. Should I tell her?
If the Light from the gate caught along the spikes in the wrong way, it might only cause a spark. Or, it could slag all the spikes, and ruin the whole project.
...or, it might split this planet in half. Light was immensely volatile. To speak nothing of its effects on the mind.
The android knew. Khadam could tell by the way Laykis stared at her. If the android wanted to stop this, all she had to do was say something to the Queen right now. It would be so easy to turn her against me. But the android remained quiet.
It’s almost like she wants me to succeed.
“Look,” the Queen said. “The arms are moving.”
Ever so slowly, they rotated around the gate. And picked up speed, until that tell-tale throbbing whoop resonated through the whole empty city. All those stone buildings, all those trees, all the vines and all their leaves, rattling and vibrating as the gate moved faster.
A gray mist shimmered around the tip of the thorn aimed at the gate. Hesitant, as if some invisible entity was sniffing at the spike, and leaving only its breath behind. And then, the mist was absorbed into the tip, and a blue-white light burst into form along the spike, racing down all those geometric paths until the whole spike was glowing. But something was wrong.
The light was supposed to leap to the next spike, and the next one. Instead, the lone spike was crackling with blue lightning, and it threatened to spill out over the top of the tower. Reaching out for the three of them. Writhing and squirming across the brickwork.
The gate was whining louder now, a high-pitched keening sound that pierced across the Cauldron, almost drowning out her voice.
“It’s not catching!” Khadam shouted. “Why isn’t it catching? Fuck!”
It was the android who spotted the error. “That one. The pattern is wrong.”
One of the light spikes. They had installed it upside down. What a stupid, simple, stupid mistake. How many times had Rodeiro warned her about sleep? About letting herself rest, to avoid making mistakes?
Khadam flung her arm, igniting the coldtorch in her exofist. She walked to the edge of the Tower.
Ryke squawked a warning at her, but Khadam ignored it.
She kneeled on the edge of the tower, inching her body closer to the spike. The patterns were almost entirely illuminated by racing bursts of lightning. She would have to overwrite them, and hope that it worked.
She stretched her arm out. Not close enough. Tendrils of lightning leaped at her, licking at her hand.
She put one foot on the spike, and it was as if the whole spike moved at once. All the lightning surged to her foot, running up her leg. Shocking her whole body limp. She couldn’t even shout, as she fell onto the spike. Couldn’t move, as her body started to slide down the rounded side...
Gentle, metal fingers closed on her arm, holding her in place.
Laykis was looking down at her, that strange faceplate, with all those scars in all that smooth, otherwise perfect metal. No mouth, no nose. Only a pair of glowing eyes.
“I will hold it back,” she said. “Be quick.”
The daughter of Tython hauled her up as if she weighed nothing. And when her mechanical foot stepped onto the spike, all the lightning surged again. The android’s body jolted, jerking and stumbling under the lightning, but she kept walking out, where the spike got thinner and the curve became steep.
She’s blocking the light with her own body.
Dangerous. Any other construct would have died on first touch. But not this one… What kind of machine had Tython built here?
Focus.
The gate’s keening had gone silent. It would open any moment now. Khadam rushed out onto the spike after Laykis, and kneeled where the design was in error. She couldn’t fix the whole thing, but she could at least get it to catch on the next spike - and hope that she had installed those correctly. With her cold torch burning, she dragged her palm along the curved metal, inscribing the most important veins of the instructions.
Out in the city, a single, gossamer thread appeared. Whiter than white. It came from the gate, and seemed to stretch up forever, disappearing somewhere far out in the void.
With the last stroke of her arm, the lightning on the spike jumped. It caught on the next spike over, and the next. Wreathing the top of Asaiyam’s temple with an ugly, jagged line of brilliant blue. And then, it leaped again, catching on the next tower. And the next, until all the excess light from the gate was hanging in the air above the Cauldron.
It worked.
It actually worked.
The thread of light from the gate disappeared, and the blue lightning unraveled as the snake ate its own tail.
Further out on the spike, where it narrowed to a tight, shoulder-width beam, the android was standing unnaturally still.
“Androfex!” Khadam called out. “It worked!”
No answer. Only a slight lean in her shoulders as a gentle breeze picked up. Her eyes were dark, no glow at all.
And Laykis began to fall.