Golden trilobites and matters particulate

The story begins in the mountains, when a gentlewoman scholar and a daring smuggler meet because of a mysterious artifact - possibly a weapon - that turns out to be sentient. It is about ordinary characters becoming heroes. The antagonist is motivated because that's what a scientist does.

The mountain pass is charged with music, with the music of the wind that comes tearing down from up on high, from Mount Dena, dry and bitter and fluting through the passes. It’s a bitter wind, cruel like bone knives and sharp and as cutting. It brings dust and all manner of matters particulate; it insinuates itself deep into crevices and homes. It’s a constant reminder that this is a hard land. A harsh land, as ancient as it is uncaring, as blood drenched as it is replete with history.

The woman misses her burka, its thick cotton, its all enclosing capacity. It afforded her protection from the wind as well as from the eyes of others, allowed her to walk unchallenged and warm where she might otherwise be challenged and arrested. Better than bribes, better than pleas, it allowed her to reach this pass, this particular isolated mountain inn without too much trouble. Her group was to pass onwards and back down into Iran tomorrow. With luck she would continue her travels with it.

But it was back in her room, however. Her identity as Jamila Ormuz shucked as easily, left folded beneath her pillow. In a manner most unladylike she had slipped out her window, fallen to the dirt path behind the inn, and then hurried to the arranged rendezvous location. Where Tamaz would be waiting for her. Where Tamaz the insane smuggler would be waiting for her with the legendary Scribe of Bait al-Hikma.

Hard scrabbling up an unforgiving slope, her hiking boots seeking traction. Hands scored by flint as she sought purchase. Up to the ledge Tamaz had assured her was there, high above the inn. Were it not for the panoply of stars overhead, she would be climbing blind. As is, everything is but faintly limned. The air is cold, thin, hard to push into her lungs in sufficient quantity. There’s no path to speak of, the goat trail he had told her was the means to ascent quickly lost. Were it not for the urgency of her task, she’d turn back, give up the cause for lost.

“Miss Jennifer,” hisses a deep voice from her left, and she starts, shies like a nervous horse, nearly falls. “Miss Jennifer,” says the voice, “Is being over here.”

Tamaz. His butcherings of the English language never so welcome. Side scrabbling like a crab, she gains his ledge. It was closer than she had dared hope. Soon she squats before him and two other men, all of them tightly packed on the ledge that looks out over the inn below, the descending road that follows the pass down into the plains of Iran. Or crosses down into Iraq on the other side. From where Tamaz has just come.

“You are being mad, Miss Jennifer,” he says gravely, “You risk too much.”

“Do you have it?” she asks, seeking to gain her breath.

“Of course,” he says, and his teeth flash white in the night. “But the price has doubled.”

Jennifer immediately begins to argue, but only because it is expected of her. She’s brought enough to pay him three times over, all the funding her Department had allocated for the next year’s expenses. But she didn’t care. The Scribe, the Scribe of Bait al-Hikma, the legendary House of Wisdom, the famous library of 12^th century Baghdad. The Scribe, reputed to have taught Thabit ibn-Qurra how to translate Greek in a week, to have aided countless Arabic scholars in turning Baghdad the center of learning in the world for over four hundred years—hers at last.

Finally they agreed upon an increase of only 150% from the original price, and Tamaz sat back, his smile evident once more. “Here it is,” he said, and drew forth a small box.

Jennifer stifled an immediate feeling of disappointment. So small? She took it, was mollified by its weight, and then opened the box to check the contents. A dull gleam of gold. Ridges, serrated edges. She looked up to Tamaz, who was watching her intently.

“It is being the Scribe,” he said, sensing her distrust, “I am finding it from a man who killed the man who stole it from the Baghdad museum in 2003. It is the original. This I swear.”

There was nothing for it. She closed the box, put it in her pack, and nodded. “Thank you. I have to go back down before I am missed.”

“Good luck, Miss Jennifer,” said Tamaz, his friends already melting back into the darkness. “I hope this is being worth your troubles.” And then he was gone.

Jennifer took a deep breath, suddenly burning to get back to her room, the illuminated privacy in which she could examine the Scribe. Sliding down, digging her heels into the scree, she couldn’t help but touch the box over and over again, assuring herself it was there.

Twenty minutes later and she was back in her room, slender rope ladder tucked back into her belongings, window shutters pulled closed behind her. Heart racing like at the hooves of a horse in full gallop, she listened in the darkness. Nothing. She moved to her bedside table, found the box of matches, lit one. Lit the candle, a second, blew out the match. Sat on the hard pallet set on the raised bedframe, pulled the box out.

The box was plain, made of wood, half the size of a shoebox. She traced its simple patterns of grain, and then slipped the lid off. Within was a trilobite made of gold, some metallic crustacean, segmented and armor plated. Its eyes were rubies, and it was with trepidation that she pulled it out of the box, fingers curling around its hard metal edges. She set it on the bedside table, and then stared at it, fascinated. It was exactly as described by Yakub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi. Turning, she drew forth her notes, condensed into a few spare sheets, jottings that only she could decipher. The fruits of over five years research, five years painful detective work amongst ancient tomes, forgotten databases, exotic texts.

Her finger traced the sentences, paused at al-Kindi’s admonishment, and then underlined the Masu Brother’s instructions. Turning back to the Scribe, she placed her fingers carefully on its head, and then in a specific order, depressed the jewels.

It didn’t hum to life. There was no whirring of gears, no sliding of joints, no mechanical noises at all. But Jennifer was immediately aware that it was on. Activated. Now, to use it, to decipher the texts she had brought with her, perhaps she had to slide it over the words…?

The Scribe spoke. The language was Arabic, but so ancient a dialect she couldn’t understand it at all. It pauses, and then spoke again. Jennifer sat completely still. Frozen. Finally, she ventured, “Excuse me..?”

The Scribe spoke again, and then repeated to her in a coppery voice, “Excuse me?”

“I… I don’t know what you mean,” she said. It sat silently, thoughtfully, and then raised itself on crab legs. She started back, suddenly repulsed. It swayed from side to side, and then leaped off the table top, along the floor, up onto her bed. It was with extreme control that she didn’t scream. It moved to her bag, and then tipped it over with one extended leg. Jennifer watched with fascination as it began to draw forth documents. Tease out pages, which it then walked over slowly, vibrating minutely from side to side as it did so.

She felt paralyzed. Watched with a helpless wonder. Was it teaching itself English? Attempting to? What manner of machine was this to behave thus? She had expected a wonder, but not a miracle. Had hoped for a technological marvel of the eleventh century, but not something beyond the abilities of the 21^st.

A knock on the door. She startled again, and wanted curse, sudden anger flooding her. This was becoming more than she could bear.

“Miss Jennifer,” said the voice from without, and the floor of her stomach fell out from under her. “Miss Jennifer, please open the door.”

She looked wildly about, surmising, hoping, evaluating. Out the window? Into the pass, and then—what? Run down the mountain sides, in the dark, no doubt chased? Instead, she drew forth her American Passport. Picked up the Scribe, which curled its legs under its body, and stashed it in the box, closed the lid, shoved it under the bed.

The man outside was tall, handsome, hair whitening at his temples. He was dressed in elegant of subdued clothing, and was alone.

“Miss Jennifer, my name is Khaled Jabbar, and I believe you are in possession of stolen artifacts from Iraq. May I please come in and search your premises?”

“No,” she said, and raised her passport. “I am an American Citizen. I demand to be escorted to the closest US embassy.”

Khaled looked at her passport with mild curiosity, and then shook his head. “Should you be found not to be holding stolen Iraqi artifacts, it will be my pleasure to escort you. If that is not the case, then I will have to arrest you and hand you over to Iranian authorities.”

He pushed past her. He smelled of cloves and cigarette smoke. He entered the room, and looked about. Jennifer’s mind whirled. Who was he? How had he learned of her acquisition?

Kneeling, he drew forth the box. In a moment of madness, she considered attacking him. He opened the box, and the Scribe scuttled out. Khaled let out a hoarse cry, and fell back onto his ass.

“It is true,” he said, “You have the Scribe of Bait al-Hikma.”

“How did you know?” she asked him, legs weak. She sank onto the only chair in the room.

“Tamaz is an informant of ours,” he said, rising to his feet. The Scribe stared at Khaled, and then at Jennifer, and then climbed back up onto the bed.

“Tamaz,” she said, wanting to crumple into her chest. “Tamaz.”

“Remarkable,” said Khaled. The Scribe began to read another sheet of paper.

“You are going to return this to the Iraqi authorities?” she asked.

“Of course. We are going to open it. Learn how it works. Attempt to understand where it came from. It is over a thousand years old, but still looks new. Remarkable.”

The Scribe paused, turned to each of them, long antennae wavering from side to side, and then continued to read.

“Fuck,” said Jennifer, and leaned forward, cupping her face in her hands. “Fuck.”

“It is too late for regrets, Miss Jennifer,” said Khaled, rising to his feet. “If you tell us what you know about this artifact, it could help lighten your punishment.”

“There’s not much to know,” she said. “It’s not even supposed to really exist. It’s a myth.”

“Clearly not,” said Khaled.

“It was made prominent by Thabin ibn-Qurra, a Sabian of Harran. A proto-Judeo sect. Advanced angeology. Worshipped the planets. Look, what’s going to happen to me?”

“Beheading,” said Khaled.

“What?”

“I’m just joking. You will probably go to jail.”

“Fuck,” she said, “Fuck you.”

“Fuck you,” said the Scribe, turning to them both again. “Beheading.”

Neither Khaled nor Jennifer said anything. They stared at the Scribe, which went back to reading the sheets of paper it was pulling from the satchel.

“Can you turn it off?” asked Khaled.

“No,” lied Jennifer.

“How is it running?” he asked, moving closer. “Did you wind it up?”

Jennifer laughed. “Are you thick? It’s speaking English to us. And you think I wound it up?”

“Good… point. Put it back in the box.”

“No.”

Khaled straightened and stared down at her, his face severe. “Do as I say.”

“I’ll scream. That should embarrass you, right?”

“Not as much as the whipping you’ll get will embarrass you.”

Jennifer stared up at Khaled. Held his gaze. Opened her mouth to scream, and then fell from her chair, his backhand making her see lights.

There was a fizzing, bubbling sound, and then a thud. She looked up, wiping blood from her mouth. Saw Khaled lying on the floor, half of his head melted away. Blood and brains was oozing out onto the carpet. The Scribe was oriented towards the fallen man, and then said, “Beheading.”

“Beheading,” said Jennifer, eyes wide. She scooted away from the body. Against the wall. Head still ringing. Raised her eyes to the golden trilobite where it had begun to read again. Stared at it. Couldn’t think. Tried to remember al-Kindi’s warning over ownership, over patronage. But the words wouldn’t come to her.

Outside the wind came shrilling down from Mount Dena. The wind came shrilling and cutting, carrying all manner of matters particulate before it, from the darkness above, past the island of light in the pass, and into the darkness below.

A quincunx and elements of ghosts

The antagonist of this piece is a lady novelist, while the protagonist is a man missing his left eye. Neither of them are motivated because they are diverting attention from something else. The plot begins with a quincunx in an island paradise. The ending includes elements of ghosts and following someone through the end of the world.

We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. – Gene Wolfe

“What do you think,” asked Dr. Theobald, “Will this suffice?”

Elizabeth paused and gazed about the clearing, one hand resting on the smooth bole of a palm tree. A wild effusion of grass sprang riot up the gentle slope, and it was enclosed on all sides by Bermuda’s dense jungle. “Yes,” she said, “It will do.”

Dr. Theobald nodded, passed his handkerchief once more over his forehead, adjusted the patch of his left eye, and then stepped off the path to ford his way to the center where he deposited the picnic basket. “Well, if we’re not eaten by an army of ants or carried away by jaguars, this may prove a very pleasant spot indeed.”

Elizabeth laughed, a low, throaty sound, and followed him into the sunlight, the long, slender blades of grass whisking past the blue skirt of her sundress. She stood still and watched as her husband drew out a blanket and cast it out over the grass like a fisherman seeking to net some earthen catch. He then shucked his shoes and stepped onto it, bringing the basket with him.

“An excellent idea, Elizabeth,” he said, lowering himself carefully onto his knees. “A trifle warm, to be sure, but that’s the tropics for you.” He opened the basket and began to draw forth glasses, a bottle of wine, a bottle opener, plates and tupperware. “To think of Bertrand slaving away on the Upper Eastside, inhaling exhaust and fumes of uric acid. Positively delightful.”

Elizabeth nodded, but didn’t answer. She reached into her purse, and drew forth a deck of cards.

“It is important to get away,” continued Dr. Theobald, pausing to run his hand through his illustrious silver beard, “To regroup, as it were. One can grow lost in the very bustle of one’s life, lose one’s way, as Dante said. One often needs perspective, distance. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, her voice soft. She began to walk towards the edge of the clearing, shuffling slowly through the deck of oversized cards.

“Of course,” continued the Doctor, “It’s times like these that one feels one’s greatest losses the most.” He took up the bottle of white wine, considered it. “I often find that at my happiest I am struck by a tinge of melancholy. Do you feel it now?”

“You mean Marcus,” said Elizabeth, pausing before a broad tree. She took a pin from her hair, and skewered one of the large cards at face level onto the trunk.

“Indeed,” said Dr. Theobald, and then more quietly, “Indeed. He would have been how old, today? Four years old. Four years. How time does pass.”

“Four and a half,” said Elizabeth, drawing forth a second card as she resumed walking around the clearing.

“Yes, well.” The Doctor tore the lead cap off the bottle’s neck, unwinding it like gauze from a mummified limb, and then dug the tip of the bottle opener’s screw into the cork. “We shouldn’t forget victories, successes. Causes for mirth and joy.” He began to twist the screw. “Your Circe and Medea. If you give a moment we’ll toast to it. To your success, and our third year of marriage.” He looked up then with a tentative smile as she pinned the second card to another tree. “What are you doing, my dear?”

“I’ll tell you soon, Theo. Just one moment.”

Dr. Theobald poured golden wine into one glass, and then a second, and for awhile the clearing was filled with the clarion call of a distant bird. Lowering himself to sit with his legs awkwardly extended before him, he watched his wife pin a third card to a tree, directly opposite the first. “You know, I don’t think you’ve ever looked so beautiful.”

Elizabeth turned to gaze at him, a fond, tolerating smile on her lips. “Your eyesight must be finally going.”

“No,” said the Doctor, “You would send Rossetti into paroxysms of ecstasy. As it is, I can barely refrain from ravishing you right now.”

Elizabeth paused before the fourth tree, and pinned a card to its trunk. Turning, she faced her husband, and gazed indulgently at where he sat, marooned on his island of cloth.

“Now, what are those cards you’ve pinned to those trees? Is this some sort of ritual we’re enacting?”

“Of sorts, Theo.” Elizabeth began to walk towards him. The air had begun to grow charged, as if a storm were approaching. “A ritual of my own devising, if you will, but one who’s efficacy, or potency, should not be diminished due to my own innovations.”

She slipped out of her sandals and stepped onto the blanket, and knelt down to take the glass of wine from him. As she did so, she extended a final card to him, which he took.

“What’s this then?” Dr. Theobald examined the colorful image on the card, holding it away from his face so as to focus on it. A man sat in full regalia on a throne, flanked by twin fluted columns. He wore red robes and a golden miter, and held one hand raised in benediction. “A tarot card?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, making herself comfortable. “Commonly known as the Pope, the fifth card in the Major Arcana.”

Dr. Theobald took another sip from his wine, and then looked at his glass with a frown. “I think this wine might be off.”

“I don’t think it’s the wine,” said Elizabeth, though she set her glass down on one of the plates. “You’ll observe the four other cards I’ve set around the clearing. Each is the fifth of each suit from the Minor Arcana. With your holding the fifth, I’ve formed a quincunx, centered on you.”

“A quincunx, hmm?” Dr. Theo gazed at his card once more, and then turned his attention to his wife.

“Yes. Five represents the essence of things as they are, the qualia of the world, if you will. Think of the word quintessence, for example. It also evokes the five senses. I’ve sought to pin the essence of who you are to this very moment, this very place.”

Dr. Theo lowered his brows. “To what end, dear?” He raised his handkerchief once more to mop at his brow. He was beginning to sweat profusely.

“The Pope is commonly known as ‘the Pontiff’,” she continued, ignoring his question, “Which translates into ‘the bridge’. He connects Heaven and Earth, a bridge between the deity and the human. But he is also known by another name, an older name: the Hierophant.”

“I’m not feeling well at all,” said Dr. Theobald. He slipped a finger under his collar, and pulled so as to loosen it. “Damn it. I’m afraid we may have to return to the hotel.”

“One moment, dear.” Elizabeth smiled at him, and he relaxed fractionally, returning his weight to one outstretched arm. “The Hierophant means literally ‘he who teaches holy things’, and is a complex symbol, one with many interpretations. One of its main associations is with the Deceiver, and is strongly connected with the card of Temperance, which guides the souls to the underworld.”

Dr. Theobald blinked several times, and in seeking to adjust his position knocked over his glass of wine. He ignored it. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but just what are you seeking to imply here? Is this meant to be some sort of attack?”

“Not an attack, but a description, a prescription if you will. As a therapist, you seek to be your patient’s guide between their conscious and subconscious. It is in that role that we met, and it was through that power that you sought to assuage me of my grief. You seek to bring individuation, to help others distinguish the boundaries between themselves and the world around them. You sought to console me, but in doing so attempted to part me from Marcus, my son.”

Dr. Theobald’s face began to darken. Sweat was pouring down his face, drenching his shirt.

“What I learned in my studies, Theo, is that certain rituals have power. That power stems from desire and belief. There are patterns in the world that affect us, whether we are aware of them or not, resonances that we feel even if we do not understand them. What I have sought to do here today is amplify them to the point of climax, to bring the moment to a crisis.”

Dr. Theobald pushed himself to his feet. He swayed in the bright sunlight, face lowered, and seemed suddenly taller, his shoulders broader. He reached out, as if seeking a staff, a spear on which to rest his weight, but found none.

“That is why I suggested this island. Bermuda, Theo, is believed to be the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Tempest.”

“My Prospero to your Sycorax,” said Theo, and his voice was harder now, tinged with dark amusement. Utterly unlike his normal tone. Still he stared down, seeking to gain his footing.

“Yes…” said Elizabeth, momentarily discomfited by his sudden assurance. “Yes, that’s right. But the patterns go back further than that.” She looked up at him, and brushed a strand of black hair from her face. “There are other patterns.”

Dr. Theobald slowed, stopped swaying. He reached up, and ran a claw of hand through his white hair. Lifted his face, and stared at Elizabeth with his one good eye. “Other patterns, yes. I feel them now.”

Elizabeth shifted back, raised her chin. The sky above was still a sterling blue, but here in the clearing it had grown murkier, as if they were at the bottom of a pond or well. She could no longer hear the sounds of birds calling to each other. No longer hear anything but a distant thrum that seemed to grow louder. The cards, where they were pinned, writhed.

“On the Viking version of the Tarot,” she continued, “The Hierophant is represented by Odin.”

“Wotan,” said Dr. Theobald, and he smiled, smiled and his teeth were yellowed, longer and sharper than they had been. He reached up then, took hold of his eye patch, and tore it free. It fluttered from his hand, torn away by a sudden wind. “Known as Yggr, Sigfodr, the All-Father.”

Elizabeth scrambled to her feet, drew back from the lean and angular figure that Theobald had begun. His one eye stared at her, but it was from the withered cavity that she felt piercing strength flow and skewer her. “Sycorax to Prospero, the Norns to Odin,” she said, the wind stealing the words from her mouth. But she felt none of the power she had hoped for, no apotheosis, no certainty.

“Theobald to Prospero, Prospero to Odin, Odin to Lugus, Lugus to Mercury, Mercury to Hermes.” His voice echoed within her. Reverberated within the deepest vaults of her mind. The grass was flattened all about her, radiating out in concentric circles from where Theobald stood, though she felt not a push of wind. The resonances were cascading into each other now, collapsing into this symbolic singularity. Soon it would tear itself apart. The moment was now.

“Take me to Marcus,” she cried, leaning forward into the force that the thing that had once been Theobald exuded, “You are psychopomp, carrier of souls, guide to the underworld, liminal and messenger, knower and deceiver, take me to my son!”

The trees had blurred around them, had been leached of all color and hue, turned ashen and gray. The sky above them had darkened so night seemed to have fallen across the island, and rank, bitter terror throbbed in Elizabeth’s stuttering heart. But she held to the one solid spar that had guided her since she had first learned of this possibility, held to her sunquenching desire for her son, stared the old god right in the eye.

“So be it,” said its voice, discarnate and complete, and around her were whipping faces and the ghosts of faces, translucent limbs more real now then the grass and trees, eyes hollowed and mouths gaping. A cold began to pierce her, a blanket of enervating ice that sank through her skin and extinguished the heat at the core of her being. Elizabeth sank to her knees, and saw a eidolon approach her, familiar in form, known from her dreams, her most fervent wishes.

“Marcus…” she whispered, and it drew closer, closer yet, and almost she could distinguish his features, read the smile on his blue lips. “Marcus she whispered, and then keeled forward, face digging into the grass, heart quelled, blood stopped, as her soul was torn free by the summoned god, and sent winging into the dark.

Mechanical hearts are more certain than flesh

Your story is a romance between a villain who considers doing the right thing and a boy who cries. The lovers experience lost knowledge and automated whales while in Singapore. One of them is motivated because they've always wanted to be a hero.

The key was shaped like a ganglial nerve, which was fitting, and impressive, given its antiquity. I had inserted it with utmost care into the boy’s head through his bone polished ocular cavity and turned it once twice three times. The boy’s body had shuddered into life, twitching and spasming minutely, and I had sat back on my heels, waiting for signs of sentience, awareness, gratitude.

They were long in coming. I left him there, supine on his faded red velvet couch, the key emerging from the pit of his eye like a slender flute of bone, grimacing and flinching at phantasms I could not see. Instead I wandered his home, the vast subterranean cavern, the echoing ceiling distant and buttressed with wings of granite and pig iron. I walked amongst his inventions, not touched for over a century. Clockwork birds rusted into obsolescence. Simulacra of the galaxy, pleasingly inexact, which I set into motion with put a push of my hand. An oscillating set of mirrors whose function I couldn’t divine.

Finally I came to the dark waters that filled the rear third of his cavern, that heaved and lapped at the shore, opaque and warm and mysterious. An exit to the ocean, a tunnel no doubt in whose depths might languish a bronze submarine or other such wonder. The boy had been fond of exploring the Riau Islands.

“Silica,” said the boy, his voice as sere as ashes. “Silica.”

I turned and regained his side. The key had begun to spin in his eye, and his face had gained composure. His remaining eye was focused on my face, though it welled with water that brimmed and ran down his smooth cheek. He raised his hand, and pointed to a clear cylinder of white sand.

I filled a tin cup with the powder, and handed it to him. Carefully, he sat up, tilted his head back as if it were hinged at the base of his neck, and poured the sand down his throat. He wasted not a grain, and closed his lips when the last of the silent cascade was gone.

“I had not thought to live again,” he said, turning to gaze at me.

“You have always been but a boy,” I said, “And never a man. Your life begins now.” I pushed him back onto his couch, his body hard and unyielding, artificial, the light in his eye flaring. I pushed him down, and swung my leg over so as to straddle him. Bending down, canting my head so as to avoid the spinning key, I kissed him and tasted dust and cinnamon.

After, I lay next to him, the cavern silent but for the quiet flux of the tide and the grind of his ever spinning key. I traced arabesque patterns across his smooth chest, and watched his face as he stared at the ceiling. He had cried until the last, his eye welling water, but now, at long last, when he finished, he had finished. Rank disappointment curdled within me. Dust not seed, and I knew that no life had been kindled within me.

“I remember catching a bird when I was young, taking it from the sky and spreading its feathers and parting its chest with my thumbs. Its feathers were as crimson as its blood, and I replaced its heart with a machination of my own devising. It ascended towards the sun when I released it, flew up till I could see it no more, a speck and then gone. I stood for twenty minutes upon the shore, waiting, and then I saw it plummet down and into the ocean. I swam out, but it had sunk and was gone.”

I continued to touch him, listening to his dry whisper. “I remember that, but not the face of my mother. I know how to bury a fox so as to avoid its revenge, but not how to create planetary gears. I can summon Pohludeo, but no longer understand why I should.”

“For me,” I whispered.

The boy arose and walked naked to the water’s edge. I followed. He extended his hand out parted his fingers in a series of fluid gestures. I stood by his side, shivering. A dull orange light awoke beneath the waves.

I had been correct in my surmises. The waters began to boil, and a great shape arose from the depths. It was of the darkest blue, a mineral color, cobalt hued, and it arose through some natural buoyancy, not through some mechanical motion. The waters sluiced down its flanks and flanges and it opened its great mouth wide.

“Pohludeo,” I said, staring at the great whale. A musty breeze swirled out from its hollow center, redolent of rust and mold.

“Pohludeo,” said the boy, and unbidden tears came again to his eye. “I journeyed far within him. Though I have forgotten I know I saw wonders through his eyes. I thought that through him I might effect change. I might impose my will on the world, and ennoble it. But I stumbled and kept my gaze on the ground, never lifting it to the heavens. I wasted my years…”

The waters surged and shifted around the pelagic form of Pohludeo. Its eyes caused shimmering ripples of amber light to play across the ceiling of the cavern. The boy turned from its vast face, and stumbled back to his velvet couch.

“I thought that mechanical hearts were more certain than those of the flesh,” he said, as he lay down on the worn cushions. “I thought that certainty was of greater worth than the pleasures to be found in the vicissitudes of life. There is nothing more certain than death, however, and so I beg of you. Release me.”

I stood over his hunched form, and swept my gaze over his toys of copper and his wonders of gold, all sheathed in dust, miracles in his time and but mere extravagant toys in mine. Had he been born but today, and not a century ago, had I been able to conceive his son—but no.

The boy turned his face to me, the key yet spinning, his eye blinded by tears. I considered him, and then laughed, darkness welling up within me to drown me within my own bitterness, and then turned to ascend once more to the world.

Cyclical conceptions mark the passage of my penance

The protagonist of this story is someone who suffers stoically and has a mechanical pet. On the way to the story's conclusion the protagonist encounters a broken character. This person has a whip. Plot elements include sports and the comforting ritual of the smoker, and at least one character is motivated because of an addiction to drama.

There are many reasons to come to the Aeries of Alongquo, but mine has been the most spurious and fanciful. This is at odds with my nature, which has been declared staunch and direct, but still I have journeyed here, and here I am now imprisoned, though each dawn I mount Jalopard and soar into the illimitable skies. Each dusk I return, bound by my word, and by the madness of my Proconsul. Though the wind moans past my cave entrance each night, though Jalopard stirs and gazes at me with burning eye, I turn away from flight, and endure.

On the Fields of Thrassos, where the Iron God had fallen, and where his great bones lay rusting still, I had danced and raced as a young man. My courage was matched only by my fleetness of foot, and I denied no challenge, though failure meant death, or worse, dismemberment. Victory became a logical conclusion to my competing, and every fortnight was marked by pageantry and celebration as I won honors and accolades. It was there that I made love to Paleagogi, the daughter of the Proconsul, some five hundred spans within the dark fastness of the Iron God’s thigh. Where I marked my greatest conquest with a cry that I believe echoes still within the God’s thoracic cavity.

The Proconsul was pleased when Paleagogi became pregnant, and agreed to our marriage. He promised that I would witness the birth of our first child. But, being the twisted heresiarch that he is, he demanded I wrest the Whip of Tongues from Kaeliber herself. A new wife needed to know the touch of discipline, he asserted, gazing at me from the corner of his eyes, would need to feel the sensual slide of muscular leather along her thigh. I could not but accede, and so mounted Jalopard, swept my grandfather’s cloak of shadows about my shoulders and flew for the peaks.

But not before the Proconsul gave his final twist of the knife. He bid that I visit the maimed witches that swam within the amber tear drops that yet fell from the Iron God’s blank eyes, and allow them to drain me of my seed. With it they would impregnate Paleagogi each time she conceived, each time they killed our newborn child. I would indeed return to see the birth of my heir, no matter how long my quest took.

Kaeliber mocks me daily, flitting about the peak of Alongquo like the soul shard of a primeval bat, always ahead of me no matter how I urge Jalopard on, how I dig my heels into his iron flanks. Encloaked in shadow, as fast as the West Wind, we chase the mad Kaeliber, whose shrieks for liberation and death mock us as she outpaces us, until Jalopard’s eyes grow dull and we are forced to return to our cave.

And so I sit, each night, my back to the dark currents that suck and pull at my cloak of shadows, that beckon for my mount and I to return to the Fields of Thrassos and slay the Proconsul and take Paleagogi as my wife and be done with this madness. But instead each night I draw forth my pipe weed and tamp it down into my long-stemmed pipe, watching my fingers as they move and order and prepare. When I inhale and the flame bends into the bowl, when the weed catches fire and I blow forth my first plume of smoke, I feel a calmness enter my soul, and know that there is no flight from honor, no escape from my bond.