The Ebon Library contained only a single book, and none but the Historians were allowed to read it.
The chill was already creeping into his suit. Everything in sight—the floors, the walls, even the columns that held up the vaulted ceilings—was made of the same lusterless black metal. Gas lanterns struggled to bring light into the cramped waiting chamber, but even their foggy, fiery lights were swallowed by the shadows of this place.
Why the Historians would want to live in such a dark, frozen hell was beyond him. No cyran scholar really understood them nor why the Emperor permitted them to abide in this ancient human relic. Some suggested the Emperor was not in control of them at all, but such blasphemy was a good way to be excluded from politics and polite company.
At least the androids broke up the bleak interior with their chrome-and-rust-covered limbs and white masks. Four of the aged machines stood against the wall, their heads bowed, their eyes dark. None of them responded to his demands.
Secaius hammered his fist on the reception bar again. “Wake up, damn you!”
Nothing. He was about to skirt around the edge of the bar when one of them finally activated.
The android lifted his head, and his eyes began to glow. His voice wasn’t quite gravelly; instead, it clicked over the vowels and consonants, surprisingly clear for a machine that had no mouth. “Ah, Magistrate Secaius. We’ve been expecting you.”
“You always say that.”
“That is because we always know when our guests are coming.”
“Of course you do.” He looked over the android’s shoulder at the three other humanoid constructs still asleep along the wall. Or maybe they’re dead. Well, there was no point in arguing with a construct who was half covered in metalrot. Its skull was corroded so badly Secaius could see the wires underneath. The Historians should at least have the decency to cover it up.
“I’m here to see the Speaker,” the Magistrate said.
The android’s eyes dimmed, just for a moment. “I’m sorry, honorable guest, but the Speaker is in the upper archives and may not be disturbed. If you’d like, I can ask her to come down here as soon as she’s available.”
“I don’t care what may or may not be,” Secaius hissed.
The android did not react in the slightest.
He hated everything about dealing with the Historians. Their insufferable android servants. The Historian’s holier-than-thou attitude. As if they were the chosen people.
And then there was this bone-chilling cold. The motor on Secaius’s chest was already tuned to its highest setting, so that heat radiated from the device, making the frigid air of the Ebon Library waver. Still, Secaius had never felt colder in all his life. The sooner he was done here, the better.
“I am a Magistrate of the Cyran Empire, and I demand to see the Speaker.”
“Our deepest apologies, Magistrate.” The android bowed. Secaius thought he could detect a hint of sarcasm in the machine’s voice, but he was, after all, only a machine. “Perhaps if I could take a message . . .”
Secaius exhaled sharply. The fog from his breath froze on his glass mask.
“Take me to the Speaker,” the Magistrate said slowly. “Now.”
The android seized, and his hands froze midgesture. Though his eyes still glowed, they stared at empty space. Then the machine seemed to wake up again.
“Very well. Please, follow me.”
The android made a clunky turn and guided Secaius out of the waiting chamber. Every other step, the android twitched as if a deep arthritis had settled into his hip.
The elevator was waiting for them at the end of yet another black hallway. When they stepped inside, the doors closed with a hollow, two-tone chime.
If he was being honest, this was the only part of the Historian’s home that Secaius enjoyed. The elevator was an incredible piece of old tech. It was a perfectly sealed room that could carry passengers up thousands of flights of steps in a matter of moments. On Cyre, they had cranes and dirigibles, but those were slow-moving things, unsteady at best and deadly at their worst.
When the elevator started, Secaius felt as if all his weight were balled into his stomach. His organs were pressed downward, giving him that exhilarating feeling of something greater than flight. No living being could ascend with this much speed.
And then, the metal walls slid away like water off a river stone, revealing the perfect glass underneath. Pure magic. This was not like the glass of his suit’s faceplate. This glass was so flawless as to be invisible.
He could see the whole expanse of the Ebon Library yawning below him. An empty city made of sheer, windowless towers of gunmetal gray and obsidian black made its twisting way up into the void of space. They were made of both elegant curves and long, sharp angles. Veins—for lack of a better word—of pulsing light carved an endless geometry across all that metal. The higher they went, the more the towers split apart, twisting away into new towers or reconnecting to their neighbors in a hypnotic, alien pattern.
The entire Library was old tech, built by humans long before any of the known cities. And it was truly alien. Not even the overgrown ruins of Menua could compare with this sight.
Twelve large segments served as the main foundation for the massive Library, and many smaller ones radiated outward like fractals. From up here, he could see the linking structures that held all these segments together like the chains of an obsidian necklace. One of the largest segments was missing, the wires as large as roads, cut and hanging in the void.
In the gap, Secaius could see the glorious blue-and-green pearl of Cyre, speckled with white and streaked with yellows and reds and browns. It shone so bright against the blackness of space.
Then, he turned his attention upward, where another light shone, grim and gray and glowing. The Scar was massive up here. Clouds of light drifted out of its hairline cracks, obscuring whatever lay inside.
Every time he came here, the Magistrate left with more questions. But today, all those questions were inconsequential. This time, this time, he sought the answer to only one question: How do I take the human?
Metal dripped over the glass walls of the elevator, cutting off his view of the Scar. He felt another tug on his body as the elevator slowed to a stop, and then it gave another hollow chime.
They had arrived.
The elevator opened on a smooth, scaleless face. Two ink-black eyes blinked at Secaius.
The Speaker.
Secaius was used to seeing Historians back on Cyre, where they were sometimes consulted by the Veneratian and the more religious folk. Tall, frail creatures, when they came to the planet, they always wore atmos suits and dome-shaped helmets.
But up here, where the Historians made their home, he could see them for what they really were. Disgusting. The Speaker’s skin was an unearthly gray, and her eyes seemed to bulge out of her head, which was little more than a fluid-filled sac. Like the androids, she had no mouth, only a black medallion belted around her throat. Or his throat. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care.
Her black, amorphous robes hung in tattered strips over her slender, towering body. A mass of tentacles acted as her feet, and the two longest ones, her arms. The Historian curled her “arms” together and bowed deeply.
Secaius was tall for a cyran, but even he had to look up to see her face.
“High Magistrate,” the Speaker said, “how may we serve you?”
The Speaker did not have a mouth. Instead, as her throat muscles fluctuated, an electric voice clicked out of the medallion. It made him sound more machinelike than the androids themselves.
“Speaker,” Secaius growled. His hands were clenched against the cold, and he had to grit his teeth to keep them from chattering. “You know why I’m here. I have questions about the human.”
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“We thought you might.” Every word, every slight incline of her saclike head, was infused with an insufferable air of superiority. “Where shall we begin?”
Secaius moved to leave the elevator, but the Historian blocked the hallway with her body. Her tentacles curled pensively in the air. “Apologies, High Magistrate, but we must speak here. The upper library is closed to the, ah, uninitiated.”
Secaius’s nostrils flared. He wondered what it would feel like to wrap his hands around the Historian’s throat. If he squeezed hard enough, would the Speaker’s eyes pop out of his head?
He pushed the thought away. Answers, first.
Behind the Historian, the dark hallway was lit by glowing orbs. Not torches, not gas lamps, but old tech orbs that shone a dull blue. Their weak light was not bright enough to illuminate the ceilings high above.
“You told me I would find an artifact, Speaker. But that’s not what I found, was it? I found a living human being.”
“Magistrate, our work is delicate; it is neither a craft nor a science. We did, however, give you our best histories. Did you not uncover what you sought?”
“All you ever give me are riddles, Historian. Answer my questions, and speak clearly for once in your life. Are there any other humans out there?”
“High Magistrate, I am surprised. I thought one of your position would be more familiar with the Prophecy.”
“And which prophecy would that be?” the Magistrate sneered. “I’ve lost count of all the times you’ve changed your minds. The amendments and additions to your Prophecy outnumber the grains in the field.”
The Speaker’s eyes were covered in layers of thin, translucent membranes. It blinked all of them at him.
“Magistrate. Surely, you didn’t come here to blaspheme in the Library of the Makers. The Unfinished Book is ever growing, yes, and ever changing. But the Book is never wrong.”
A dozen more insults sprung to mind, and Secaius bit them all back. Hard as it was to admit, he needed the Historians now more than ever.
“Are there more of them?” the Magistrate asked through gritted teeth.
The Historian closed the membranes over her eyes and bowed her head. When she spoke, it sounded more like a reverent prayer than speech. “Wrapped in his cloak of ice and slumber, there lay the Savior. And vul, did we weep, for he was alone. And he would be again. Always, and forever.”
Alone. Good. Yet, Secaius could not help but feel that the Historian was still holding on to something.
“Then,” Secaius said, “this is the last one? The very last of the humans?”
“You think one Savior is not enough?”
“Answer the question,” Secaius spoke through gritted teeth.
“The ages lap like waves against our walls, and once our eyes were opened, they are now always so. We see all that is, much of what was, and only a glimpse of what must be. But in all our time, we have only seen the one god. The last born of his kind. Never, Magistrate, have we seen another.”
Secaius allowed himself a brief smile. It was exactly the answer he had been hoping for. If there was only one human, then his task was simple. And his reward, all but certain.
The Everlord’s Gift. Immortality.
But the one question still remained: how do I claim him?
The Magistrates would never answer so blunt a question. So Secaius had to cut his way in from the outside.
“This human. Tell me about him. What did you see? How strong is this god?”
“One child among all the stars. Such a small vessel in which to place all our hope.”
A child . . . Secaius grinned. Even better.
There were so many myths about the old gods, but if the human was only a child . . .
“Where would a child hide in a city of birds? What does your Prophecy say about this Savior anyway?”
All the membranes on the Speaker’s eyes folded back, and the black ink of her pupils fixated on Secaius as if he were a piece of fresh, bloody meat fallen to the ocean floor.
“Oh.” Her medallion clicked almost seductively. “Oh, Magistrate. You wish to hear the Written Word spoken aloud? You wish to hear of our Savior?” The tips of the Speaker’s tentacles twisted with excitement.
“Sure.”
Secaius had no room in his world for prophecies and dreams of salvation. Anyone can believe in anything, especially when belief is easier than the hard, bloody work needed to actually bring your dreams to fruition. His father, may he rot, had taught him that lesson many dark decades ago. If you want something, you must reach out and take it. Nobody will ever give you anything.
Secaius was only interested in one salvation: his own, through the Emperor’s gift. But the Historians did have an uncanny sense when it came to deciphering old tech and everything else the gods had left behind. This might be of value.
“I will hear your Written Word, Historian. Give it to me.”
The Speaker closed all of her eyelids and began to inhale. And kept inhaling. Her nostrils flared, slowly filling her thin, elongated torso with air. Her head swelled in size. And when the Speaker exhaled, it was as if she had been holding this breath for a lifetime.
As if she’d been waiting for someone to ask her this very question.
“In the beginning,” the Speaker started with a grand unfurling of her tentacle arm. “Light was not light. Time was not time. And there was but one world, and but one star, and but one people who called themselves human . . .”
Rage filled his thoughts. By the gods, she’s starting at the beginning.
I hate Historians.
The Speaker, oblivious to Secaius’s building frustration, continued to perform the preamble of the Unfinished Book. There was no telling how long this would go on. Her tentacles curled and uncurled euphorically as she languished in the ecstasy of the sacred words.
A hard knocking slam echoed down the hallway.
A voice, shouting from the distance.
“Speaker!”
Another Historian was rushing toward them, his foot tentacles slapping against the cold stone floor. “A revelation! We have witnessed a new revelation!”
The Speaker’s tentacles went rigid. Her eyes folded open. And without turning her body, she twisted her head around to hiss at the newcomer, “I am with a guest!”
“But it’s about the—”
The Speaker hissed him into silence.
“A revelation?” Secaius asked. “What is this?”
The Speaker’s head twisted back around to regard the Magistrate. She bowed. “Apologies and regrets, Magistrate. Our time together has concluded, and I must exit this conversation. Please follow our android back to the welcoming gate.”
The Speaker’s foot tentacles flipped and rolled over each other, turning and carrying her across the floor. She and the other Historian bowed their heads together, their voices clicking and whispering excitedly as they rushed down the hallway.
Secaius turned his head, trying to catch their voices as they disappeared around the corner.
What could they be hiding . . . ?
“Magistrate?” a voice said from over his shoulder. Secaius had almost forgotten about the android. He held up a hand, demanding her silence.
“Magistrate,” the android said firmly. “I must insist that you follow me.”
He looked at the machine. The android’s eyes were bright as candles, suggesting her core was healthy enough. The androids were rare constructs, and legendary in their deftness and agility. But those joints were in dire need of maintenance, and that metalrot was probably starting to affect her reasoning faculties. Perhaps I could simply . . .
Secaius started to follow the Historians. An iron hand clapped him on the shoulder. Her metal fingers dug into his scales, making him gasp in pain. “Unhand me, machine.”
“Magistrate, I implore you to—” She froze in midsentence.
Secaius threw out his gloved hand, feeling the telltale tug on his palm and fingers. His aimed at her torso, which creaked as the metal began to buckle and fold. Secaius squeezed his fingers together, and he was rewarded with a muffled crunch. The android’s eyes went dark. She collapsed in a heap of limbs and crumpled metal.
Secaius sniffed. It always makes them look so small.
He followed the two Historians as silently as he could given his cumbersome suit. There was plenty of air left in the tank, but the motor was starting to whine as its fuel ran low.
The black hallway curved back on itself, guiding him into the entrance of a vast, open temple. No need for light orbs in here. Powerful columns held up an expansive glass ceiling, and the light of the Scar shed poured in, casting gray, glowing shadows over every shape.
He stopped at the entrance, his mouth falling open.
What is this?
Dozens of oddly shaped pools filled with solid ice. A figure, or sometimes several figures, frozen under that ice.
Except for one, in which the ice had melted to water. It was surrounded by a mass of Historians, each of them kneeling in their tattered robes at the water’s edge. Their heads were down, and none of them moved.
There were bodies in the water, pale gray and naked. Most of them were silent, their tentacles splayed around them, limply floating in the water. But one was thrashing violently and screaming in sheer agony. Yet the other Historians merely knelt and watched. They hunched over glowing tablets, scribbling furiously, watching as steam roiled off the water’s surface.
And then, Secaius’s view was cut off. Historians emerged from the shadows. They gathered in a line in front of the Magistrate, barricading him from the temple beyond.
“Magistrate,” one of them said in that dry, mechanical voice. He thought it was the Speaker, but with so many of them standing next to each other, he could not tell them apart. All of them stared down at him with those black, empty eyes.
“You will leave. Now.”
“What is this place?” Secaius said. “What are you xenos doing here?”
None of them spoke. None of them moved. In fact, they didn’t even look at him. He was sick of their riddles. Sick of the way these arrogant xenos acted toward him, as if he were not a High Magistrate of the Cyran Empire. But if they would not willingly bow before his demands . . . then he would make them.
“Answer me!” Secaius thrust his gloved hand toward one of the Historians.
Nothing. He felt nothing. Not even the barest hint of a change.
Secaius looked at his hand as if he might see the problem. He tried again. But it did not matter how hard he pushed, how much force he threw into his intent. The gloves did not work.
What?
One of the Historians spoke over his head. “I call a motion. The Magistrate’s actions were observed.”
One of the other Historians answered the call. “I will second. A gift from the Makers has been used in discordance with the law, as it is written.”
The other Historians echoed back the words, “As it is written.”
“Will there be a third?”
“I will third,” another Historian answered.
Behind the wall of black, tattered robes and gray faces, Secaius could see more Historians gathering. They were watching him, their tentacles scribbling at those glowing tablets.
“Here and now,” the first Historian said, “Floratian Locutus Secaius, High Magistrate of the First Empire after the Fall, is banished from the Library of the Makers.”
“Banished?” Secaius spat. “You can’t do this to me.”
“As it is written,” the first Historian said.
The rest bowed their heads and spoke in unison, “Judgment has been recorded.”
Now he heard the clanking echoes of footsteps. Four androids marched behind him. Secaius flexed his fingers. He thought about trying his gloves again.
“Magistrate Secaius,” one of the constructs said, its voice exactly the same as the one he had crushed earlier. “Please, follow us.”
“The Veneratian will hear of this insult,” he snarled.
And when one of the androids reached for his arm, he jerked it away. “Do not touch me, machine.” He stomped toward the elevators, not bothering to look back at those vile, mindless xenos.
This was a victory. His questions had been answered. And despite their insults, he’d gotten what he came for. Even the Historians believed the human was the last of its kind. And it was only a child.
How hard could it be to contain a child god?