“And that’s the problem,” she grumbled. “They’re immune to practically any degree of sorcery, and I can animate them all at the same time. I have a... well, to simplify, a sorcerous array that links them all together and allows me to activate them with barely any of my own power.
“But I can’t control them separately. I can march them all in a line, and they can all swing at the same time, but making them do two different tasks? Well, I can usually manage two, though I stopped practicing. But three? A dozen? No.” She puffed out another breath. “It’s frustrating. It was such agoodidea.”
“It’s anincredibleidea,“ Varius told her. His mind spun.
Thiswas why she needed a house away from Tychon’s watch. It was all for this.
Theira sighed. “But with that limitation, their usage in a real engagement is too limited. If they marched on a town, I wouldn’t be able to keep them from walking through houses, because I couldn’t change their directions. If they faced different kinds of attacks?” She shook her head. “I’ve resorted to using them as test dummies. Though as a person who’s actually led an army and routinely had to counter all manner of unexpected circumstances, I admit I hoped you might be able to come up with a more useful idea for them. I’ve been loath to abandon the concept entirely, but—“
“I haveso manyideas,“ Varius interrupted. “The first is: this array. Is there a wayIcan try controlling them?”
Theira blinked. Cocked her head. “Hmm. Yes, I think so. Why?”
“Your strength is in advance planning,” Varius told her. “Myjob is to keep track of a thousand things at once while they’re changing and adapt.”
Theira’s eyes lit. “What an interesting point. Come this way.”
She strode quickly into the sea of golems, and Varius followed the sorceress deeper in, wondering what he was getting into and excited about it.
He really hadn’t been a proper Aurelian soldier.
Theira stopped at one golem that had a step stool next to it and gestured him up. “This golem’s head opens. You can control it from inside. I’d thought it might be advantageous to be armored, though I couldn’t stand it. There’s an... I don’t know how to explain it. Drop yourself in, have a look around. I’ll get you set up from outside.”
Varius had been the top enemy of sorceresses for years. He didn’t understand this magic, and it would be impossibly easy for her to have set something up where he stepped into her spell and she controlled his body.
The fact that Theira had distractedly scurried away without even waiting to see what he would do was the best reassurance on offer.
But really—Varius wasn’t any better than her. He’d joked she wouldn’t have been able to resist opening her door to him, and he was absolutely going to get in her clay death puppet.
He jumped into the golem.
“Pull the top closed!” Theira called.
Sealing him inside her sorcerous death puppet?
Varius sighed and gripped the lever above his head.
If she didn’t take this as a show of trust from him, he wasn’t sure what would do it.
As soon as the head shut, it was like windows had opened all around him.
Varius reached forward through the vision and touched solid clay. But he could see all the golems surrounding him as if there were no barrier.
“Can you hear me?” Theira’s voice abruptly appeared as if next to his ear.
What the fuck? “Yes.”
“Fantastic. I’m going to connect you to just this golem first, so you can try moving it. Ready?”
How in all the gods’ names could he possibly be ready for this madness?
Varius grinned. “Yes.”
He had no idea what Theira did—sorcery—but all at once he felt a kind of disassociation with his body. There were no words to describe it—he could hardly think in words, like he’d descended all at once into a strange drug haze—but he couldfeelthe golem in his mind.
And he could move it.
Varius didn’t take a step with his body. He took a step with his brain.
