Finally, Vlad Li Tam reached the last book. The Book of Rudolfo, Shepherd of the Light. He held the book gently in his hands. “You don’t ha‹€don?ve any children, do you, Rudolfo?”
“You know I do not.”
Vlad Li Tam nodded, slowly, staring into the flames. “Our friends in Windwir could’ve helped you with that,” he said.
Could they have? Perhaps, but he doubted it. Rudolfo shook his head. “Androfrancine magicks are often greatly exaggerated.”
“Nonetheless,” Vlad Li Tam said. Then his voice went quiet. “I have had many children.” His eyes shifted from the fire and met Rudolfo’s. “I’ve given sixteen of them to make you the man you are. Seventeen if you count the daughter who denounces me because of her love for you.” He looked away. “If you had children,” he said, “you would appreciate how seriously I take my appointed work in this world.”
Rudolfo nodded, his fingers slipping to the hilt of his scout knife. “I do not have children,” he said. “But if I did, I should not treat them as game pieces.”
He would have drawn his knife then and killed Tam where he stood, but something stopped him. Something he’d seen a long time ago when he was a boy standing with a very different man by a very different fire. He’d seen it there by his brother Isaak’s pyre where he stood with his parents. He saw it now here with Vlad Li Tam.
It was a tear running down the line of a grieving father’s face.
Rudolfo watched that tear, his fingers caressing the hilt of the knife. Each question had taken him in deeper, and now, at the heart of this labyrinth, he found himself uncertain of what to do next. And that uncertainty revealed another discovery-that somehow, not being sure-footed was more alarming to Rudolfo than the idea that this old man before him had cut this Whymer Maze into his soul with a physician’s salted knife, changing the course of his life by carving away pieces of it at key moments. How far had it gone? A twin, older by mere minutes, dies in childhood of a treatable disease and the youngest becomes heir. Two strong and loving parents are murdered, thrusting that young child into leadership at a fragile age. At a place of intersecting alliances, a close friend-a last anchor to innocence long lost-is murdered, and a strong partnership of marriage becomes rooted in the fertile soil of grief comforted, and blossoms into something like love.
Inquiry had led him into the center of this maze, and from this place, Rudolfo could see clearly now that he could drink an ocean of questions, and find himself adrift in doubt and thirsting for yet more answers.
Vlad Li Tam did not meet his stare. He raised that last book up over the fire, and Rudolfo turned away.
He did not want to see this grieving father burn the book Rudolfo’s l‹€olfoRife had written. “If I see you again, Lord Tam,” he said over his shoulder in a tired voice, “I will not hesitate to kill you.”
As he mounted his horse, he did not look back.
Behind him, Rudolfo heard the book land in the fire and heard the hiss and crackle as it ate the pages of his life.
Petronus
Petronus looked at the storm of paper that had gathered over the surface of his desk and sighed. Through the open window behind him, a warm breeze carried the smells of the town mingled with the scent of flowers blossoming in Rudolfo’s gardens.
He rubbed his temples. His eyes ached from the steady march of cramped script he’d read over the last few months, and in the past week the headaches had started up. His hand hurt, too, and he’d even sent Neb to the River Woman for salts to soak it in. The amount of paper was daunting even when he’d first arrived here, but it had increased steadily from that point and so had the hours he’d needed to put in if he was to untangle the knots and tie off the loose ends before the council. It was dark when he entered his office and started each day, and it was dark when he left.
Today would be no different.
He heard Isaak’s approach beyond the partially closed door-the clicking and clanking of his gears and motor, the heavy footfalls and the slight hiss of escaping steam preceding the metal man’s tinny voice. He poked his head into the room. “Father?”
“Hello, Isaak,” Petronus said. “Come in.”
Isaak walked into the room. In one hand he held the cage containing the golden bird that Petronus had asked him to investigate, and in his other he carried a small stack of paper.
“I’ve finished my work with the mechanical bird,” Isaak said. He placed the golden bird on the corner of the desk, and Petronus noted that he set it in exactly the place he had picked it up two or three weeks earlier.
Petronus stared at it. Isaak had wanted to repair it, but Petronus had not wanted to take that step until they knew more about it. The bird lay in the bottom of its cage, its head twitching and its one good eye rolling loosely in its socket. One of its charred wings still lay bent and sparking, and its metal talons opened and closed mechanically. He forced his gaze back to Isaak. “Did you learn anything?”
Isaak’s eye shutters flashed. “Its memory and behavior scrolls were significantly damaged by fire. Any more recent instructions are beyond retrieval, but it is indeed the property of House Li Tam. I found an inscription from Pope Intellect VII, gifting it to Xhei Li Tam.”
Surprised, Petronus looked from Isaak to the bird. Intellect had been Pope centuries before the Order had begun its research in Old World mechanicals. “It’s not Androfrancine work, then?”
“No, Father. It is a restoration, not a reproduction.”
Petronus chose his next words carefully; Xhum Y’Zir’s spell was a sensitive subject for the metal man. “Is the damage consistent with the… events… at Windwir?”
Isaak’s eyes darkened, first one and then the other. He turned away. “Yes, Father.” A gout of steam whistled, and his mouth flap opened and closed. Petronus had learned early on how to read these behaviors. Isaak was troubled. Finally, the metal man spoke again. “I do not understand it, though. It is certainly of durable design, and it was significantly damaged.”
Petronus nodded. “Yes.”
Isaak’s voice lowered. “The other mechoservitors and I were on the ground in the midst of the Desolation. Why weren’t we damaged?”
The old man shrugged. “Your leg was damaged.”
Isaak shook his head. “Sethbert’s Delta Scouts damaged my leg. The spell itself did not damage me or the others of my kind. I do not understand this.”
Petronus felt his eyebrows raise. He hadn’t realized the injury was not a result of the spell, and he wondered why he’d not thought about this sooner. There were fourteen mechoservitors in total, and all but Isaak were in the library when Windwir fell. He’d seen the blackened wreckage, the ruined remains of the few Androfrancine artifacts the gravediggers had collected in the wagons. Very little of it would be salvageable. And yet the metal men had emerged unscathed for the most part. “I do not understand it either.”
Isaak placed the stack of paper on the one remaining bare surface of Petronus’s desk. “That brings me to the other matter you asked me to investigate, Father.”
Petronus rubbed his temples and tried to remember. His head felt full and he could feel the ache behind his eyes. “Which matter?”
“I have reinventoried the Order’s holdings regarding magicks and mechanicals adaptable for military use. My process and findings are in this report.”
More paper. Petronus looked at it but did not pick it up. “Can you summarize your findings for me?”
Isaak nodded. “Certainly, Father. In short, there are none remaining.”
Now Petronus reached for the report and scanned the first page. “None?”
“No, Father. Though it should not be a surprise. Brother Charles was very careful to remove the most sensitive knowledge from his mechoservitors.”