“It won’t be necessary, master. The other boy is certainly no more than a river-rat. He won’t be missed. But this one is something rarer.” Iachimo prodded Yama in the small of the back with a fingernail as sharply pointed as a stiletto and whispered, “Show him what you can do.”
“I do not understand what you want of me.”
“Oh, you understand,” Iachimo hissed. “I know what you can do with machines. You got past the gatekeeper, so you know something of your inheritance.”
The merchant said, “I’m in an indulgent mood, Iachimo. Here’s your test. I’m going to order my soldiers to kill you, boy. Do you understand? Stop them, and we’ll talk some more. Otherwise I’m rid of a fraud.”
Four of the guards started forward from their niches. Yama stepped back involuntarily as the guards, their faces expressionless beneath the bills of their silver helmets, raised their gleaming falchions and marched stiffly across the lawn toward him, two on the right, two on the left.
Iachimo said in a wheedling tone, “Master, surely this isn’t necessary.”
“Let me have my fun,” the merchant said. “What is he to you, eh?”
Yama put his hand inside his satchel and found the hilt of his knife, but the guards were almost upon him and he knew that he could not fight four at once. He felt a tingling expansion and shouted at the top of his voice. “Stop! Stop now!”
The guards froze in mid-step, then, moving as one, knelt and laid down their falchions, and bent until their silver helmets touched the grass.
The merchant reared up and squealed, “What is this? Do you betray me, Iachimo?”
“Quite the reverse, master. I’ll kill him in a moment, if you give the word. But you see that he is no mountebank’s fake. The merchant glared at Yama. There was a high whine, like a bee trapped in a bottle, and a machine dropped through the air and hovered in front of Yama’s face. Red light flashed in the backs of his eyes. He asked the machine to go away, but the red light flashed again, filling his vision. He could see nothing but the red light and held himself still, although panic trembled in his breast like a trapped dove. He could feel every corner of the machine’s small bright mind, but by a sudden inversion, as if a flower had suddenly dwindled down to the seed from which it had sprung, it was closed to him.
Somewhere beyond the red light, the merchant, said, “Recently born. No revenant. Where is he from, Iachimo?”
“Downriver,” Iachimo said, close by Yama’s ear. “Not far downriver, though. There’s a small town called Aeolis amongst the old tombs. The book at least comes from there.”
The merchant said, “The City of the Dead. There are older tombs elsewhere on Confluence, but I suppose you aren’t to know that. Boy, stop trying to control my machines. I have told them to ignore you, and fortunately for you, you don’t know the extent of your abilities. Fortunate for you, too, Iachimo. You risked a great deal bringing him here. I’ll not forget that.”
Iachimo said, “I am yours to punish or reward, master. As always. But be assured that this boy does not understand what he is. Otherwise I would not have been able to capture him.”
“He’s done enough damage. I have reviewed the security systems, something you haven’t troubled to do. He blinded the watchdogs and the machines patrolling the grounds, which is why he and his friend could wander the grounds with impunity. I have restored them. He has killed the gatekeeper too, and his friend is armed. Wait—there are two of them, both armed, and loose in the grounds. The security system was told to ignore them, but I’m tracking them now. You have let things get out of hand, Iachimo.”
“I had no reason to believe the security system was not operating correctly, master, but it proves my point. Here is a rare treasure.”
Yama turned his head back and forth, but could see nothing but red mist. There was a splinter of pain in each of his eyes.
He said, “Am I blinded?” and his voice was smaller and weaker than he would have liked.
“I suppose it isn’t necessary,” the merchant said, and the red mist was gone.
Yama knuckled his stinging eyes, blinking hard in the sudden bright light. Two of the guards stood at attention behind the merchant’s couch, their red-and-white uniforms gleaming, their falchions held before their faces as if at parade.
The merchant said, “Don’t mind my toys. They won’t harm you as long as you’re sensible.” His voice was silkily unctuous now. “Drink, eat. I have nothing but the best. The best vintages, the finest meats, the tenderest vegetables.”
“Some wine, perhaps. Thank you.”
The naked woman poured wine as rich and red as fresh blood into a gold beaker and handed it to Yama, then poured another bowl for the merchant, who slobbered it down before Yama could do more than sip his. He expected some rare vintage, and was disappointed to discover that it was no better than the ordinary wine of the peel-house’s cellars.
The merchant smacked his lips and said, “Do you know what I am? And do stop trying to take control of my servants. You will give me a headache.”
Yama had been trying to persuade one of the machines which illuminated the room to fly down and settle above his head, but despite his sense of expansion, as if his thoughts had become larger than his skull, he might as well have tried to order an ossifrage to quit its icy perch in the high foothills of the Rim Mountains. He stared at the gold circlet on the merchant’s fleshy, hairless pate, and said, “You are really one of those things which crew the voidships. I suppose that you stole the body.”
“As a matter of fact I had it grown. Do you like it?”
Yama took another sip of wine. He felt calmer now. He said, “I am amazed by it.”
“You have been raised to be polite. That’s good. It will make things easier, eh, Iachimo?”
“I’m sure he could stand a little more polishing, master.”
“I’ve yet to find a body that can withstand my appetites,” the merchant told Yama, “but that’s of little consequence, because there are always more bodies. This is my—what is it, Iachimo? The tenth?”
“The ninth, master.”
“Well, there will soon be need for a tenth, and there will be more, an endless chain. How old are you, boy? No more than twenty, I’d guess. This body is half that age.”
The merchant pawed at the breasts of the woman. She was feeding him sugared almonds, popping them into his mouth each time it opened. He chewed the almonds mechanically, and a long string of pulp and saliva drooled unheeded down his chin.
He said, “I’ve been male and female in my time, too. Mostly male, given the current state of civilization, but now that I’ve made my fortune and have no need to leave my estate, perhaps I’ll be female next time. Are there others like you?”
“That is what I want to discover,” Yama said. “You know of my bloodline. You know more than me, it seems. You called me a builder. A builder of what?”
But he already knew. He had read in the Puranas, and he remembered the man in the picture slate which Osric and Beatrice had shown him.
Iachimo said, “’And the Preservers raised up a man and set on his brow their mark, and raised up a woman of the same kind, and set on her brow the same mark. From the white clay of the middle region did they shape this race, and quickened them with their marks. And those of this race were the servants of the Preservers. And in their myriads this race shaped the world after the ideas of the Preservers.’ There’s more, but you get the general idea. Those are your people, boy. So long dead that almost no one remembers—”