Friend.Once, he had all of Gwaharad’s men and women by his side. In Arland, everyone at that captured Imperial fortress was a friend. Loran, most of all, was his friend. But she was missing now, and he was here at the Capital. He thought of the dream vision he’d had in the square.
Loran told him to reach for a star. Emere didn’t know what that meant, but he had a vague feeling that something was about to happen. Something that would miss him if he stayed still.
But hadn’t that been how he always felt? When he was younger, he would chase every dream, trusting in the Tree Lords’ teachings. In that forest clearing, when he finally met Loran, the woman from his dreams, he had felt vindicated for all his fruitless years. But the grand destiny turned out to be not his, but Loran’s. Emere played a part in her story, and then it was over. Still, his instincts were telling him to follow this dream, that this time it would be different. He knew, of course, it wouldn’t be. It never had been.
“And another thing,” Ludvik said. His eyes seemed to glint in a starker tone. Emere’s cup paused in midair as he felt a hint of danger in Ludvik’s face. The man was hunting for something, his senses suddenly sharp.
“What troubles you?” Emere asked.
“How much do you know of the Circuit of Destiny?”
Emere shrugged.
“I don’t know much about it. Something about connectingseveral Power generators together, which enables the user to look into the past and predict the future…”
Ludvik’s stare looked sharp enough to cut into Emere’s mind. But his stare faltered and moved toward empty space, as if he were gazing at someone who wasn’t there.
“Grand Inquisitor Lysandros once said the Circuit of Destiny was the true power of the Empire. A god-like power, made by man.” His expression turned wistful.
Emere tried not to show any emotion at the mention of Lysandros. Lysandros had almost killed him and his fifty men on Finvera Pass, with nothing more than his presence. He remembered the first breath he took after Arienne had cut the machine-man’s arms off and kicked him down the mountainside. “Yes,” murmured Emere, “whoever knows the future could create their own destiny, I suppose.”
He had only made the comment to fill the silence, but Ludvik took it seriously.
“Councillor Emere, the Circuit of Destiny is no mere fortune-telling device. A single Class One or Two Power generator can move a gigatherion the size of a castle, but three hundred such generators linked together? The amount of Power involved is unimaginable. But it is only a machine in the end. It cannot decide to do anything by itself.”
Emere was relieved that the conversation had moved away from his assassination attempt, but the strange wistfulness of the Tythonian was unsettling. Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rising, Emere said, “But why do you bring up the Circuit?”
“Well. If the Circuit of Destiny were to let you decide, what would you do?”
“Decide what?”
With his finger, Ludvik drew a large circle over his head. “Anything and everything. For the Empire, the provinces… the world.”
Emere forced a laugh. “I don’t know what you could be talking about. Did Difri put spirits in your tea? You might as well ask me what I would do with a Thiopsian wish-granting gavel.”
Ludvik lowered his arm. “Right, too right. But, Emere, what was it that your Tree Lords taught? Destiny places each of us somewhere. When it does, you must make a decision in that very place. And that choice is yours and yours alone. I’ve always found it poetic.”
Emere chuckled. “I didn’t know you were versed in Kamori philosophy.”
Ludvik laughed and said, “I am versed in many things, Emere. That is how I am ready for that moment, if it ever comes. How about you?”
Feeling awkward, Emere grinned and gestured to Difri for more peaches.
8
ARIENNE
She set out from the twisted house into Danras, carefully peering up and down the street when she reached the corner. From this distance, it seemed as if the object was standing still and staring with its strange not-eyes.
It looked like a giant metal insect, but with four legs instead of six, and it had all kinds of things on its back—fragments of furniture, old clothes, broken awnings. Human remains. All covered in red dust. It was giant, and Arienne could only guess at how large it would have been originally, without all the junk tacked onto its body.
“A little gigatherion, made of trash…” Arienne found herself murmuring aloud while thinking of the behemoth of the Empire that had struck Arland’s dragon down from the sky. Could the two machines truly be related? Arienne could still faintly hear the familiar hum of a Power generator, so there was no doubt that the monster was a Powered machine that carriedits own generator. But there was no balance or symmetry to the wretched object before her, which would’ve been the hallmark of a human-made device.
Arienne held her breath as the monster began moving again. There were three arm-like appendages coming out of its torso. Unlike its legs, these had no clear joints, and they flailed listlessly like sluggish whips. Two of these appendages ended with pincers, and one had a grass-cutting blade, or perhaps a saw. It was hard to tell through all the rust on it.
In the room in her mind, Aron the donkey brayed. Startled, Arienne shouted into the room, “Be quiet! What happens if…”
What happens if the monster hears you…But of course, there was no way the thing could hear something inside her mind.
