It had taken Charles years, but he’d learned enough about them to eventually offer them up to the Office of the Holy See as an improved means of communication, particularly in the Churning Wastes where the living message birds lost their magicks and their direction.
“Authorization unconfirmed.”
Unconfirmed? Charles let his held breath out through his nose, watching the force of his exhalation move the moon sparrow’s soft silver feathers. He could remember establishing the authorizations for these particular messengers. He’d updated them just months before his apprentice betrayed him and destroyed Windwir. He paused a moment, trying to reach back into his memory to find the correct query language. “Emergency protocol, unwind scroll four, six, two: Destination?”
With the slightest pop, his voice vanished and another-this one reedy and metallic-slipped out of the bird’s open beak. “Mechoservitor Three, Ninefold Forest Houses, Seventh Forest Manor, Library.”
He thought about asking again, thought even that perhaps he could find other hidden paths within the Whymer Maze of its tiny memory casing. Some back path that might tell him where the bird had come from. They’d used moon sparrows as a part of the Sanctorum Lux project, along with other similar endeavors that required something more reliable than an organic bird or a person. The birds were small, fast and-until now-had not encountered anything that could successfully stop them.
Charles heard the heavy footfalls outside his door, heard the slightest wheeze of bellows and hum of gears from where the mechoservitor waited. He put down the small mechanical and stood from his stool, stretching the muscles that threatened to knot his shoulders and neck.
He was opening the door just as the robed mechoservitor raised a metal hand to knock. “Good afternoon, Isaak.”
Isaak’s eye shutters flashed open and closed. Steam slipped out from the back of his robe, where he’d carefully cut away the fabric around his exhaust grate. “Good afternoon, Father.”
Father. Until recently, Charles had never considered himself truly a parent. Certainly, he’d joked often enough about his mechanical creations and re-creations being his children, but he’d come to the Order as a young zealot from the Emerald Coasts. At that age, with the precepts and gospels of P’Andro Whym so near his tongue and matters of the flesh so far out of mind, he couldn’t even comprehend the act that might lead to fatherhood. And throughout his tenure in the Order, he’d stayed that course.
Now, however, a machine he had built, assembled based on Rufello’s Book of Specifications, had grown unexpectedly into something capable of regarding him as its father. The notion of it staggered him, though if he were completely honest, there were also days he still doubted it despite his own experience.
“Good afternoon, Isaak,” he said, inclining his head toward the metal man. He’d told him many times that he could call him Charles or even Brother Charles if he preferred. Each time, Isaak had suggested that his preference was to call him Father.
For a moment, Isaak stood still and the awkwardness of the moment played out. Finally, his amber eyes flashed again. “May I speak with you?”
Charles motioned for him to come in. “I’m nearly finished with our little friend.”
Isaak entered and waited while Charles closed the door behind him. Then, he followed the arch-engineer back to the workbench and watched over his shoulder while he took up the magnifying glass once again. The bellows filled, and Isaak’s reedy voice resonated in the room. “Were you able to learn anything about its point of origin or the message it bears?”
Charles shook his head. “I’m. unauthorized for those things.” The word felt distasteful in his mouth. “But Lady Tam is correct: Its message is for you.” He looked back to Isaak.
The mechoservitor blinked, turning its head slowly to the left and right. Charles had noticed that Isaak did that when he was accessing deeper lines within his memory scrolls. “There was a matter of authorization prior to your arrival in the Churning Wastes,” Isaak said. “At the bridge where we encountered the mechoservitor that later ended his operational effectiveness.”
“This is the instance where the boy, Nebios, was authorized access but you and the Waste guide were not?”
“Yes, Father.”
Charles moved the magnifying glass, shifting so that the metal man could see him but also so that the towering figure did not block his light. “More of the mystery,” he said. “But we’ve had a triple helping of mystery. Do you want to hear your message, instead?”
Amazing, he thought, how easy it was to see the mechanical as a child of sorts. He heard a child’s hesitation now in the whine of the mouth flaps as they opened and closed. He waited until Isaak finally spoke. “I would like to ask you a question first.”
Charles put the bird down and turned to face the metal man. “Ask, Isaak.”
“What level of malfunction would be necessary for a mechoservitor to practice active deception, and can it be corrected?”
The spell again. Rudolfo had briefed him early on about it, of course, and Charles understood why. The spell trapped inside of this device could, in the wrong hands, bring down the world around them. It had razed Windwir. Two thousand years earlier, Xhum Y’Zir’s death choir of similar mechanicals had sung the spell and brought about the Age of Laughing Madness and the end of the Old World. And as much as he understood why Rudolfo had made him the third person-the fourth if they counted Isaak-to know that the spell had survived, he also understood why Rudolfo had warned him to let Isaak bring the knowledge to him in the metal man’s own time.
Charles sighed and wondered if real children had better-timed curiosity than their mechanical counterparts. “I think it depends upon the deception. Not all deceptions are a result of malfunction. Some may be a highly analytical outgrowth of careful thought regarding the better choice when no choice is truly optimal.”
He watched Isaak now while the metal man thought about this. “But wouldn’t that contradict a mechanical’s scripting?”
Charles shrugged. “It could. But other scripting could call for that contradiction-or untested circumstances could alter the scripting in some way.” He paused. “And I know it seems incorrect on the surface, but sometimes deceptions are carried out for love, for safety, for any number of noble purposes.”
“I can see logic in that,” Isaak said, his tinny voice taking on a matter-of-fact tone. “Still, it perplexes me.”
Tell me. He bent his will toward the metal man. He would not ask the reason why. But in the end, he did. “What brings this question about, Isaak?”
Now watch, Charles told himself.
A gout of steam shot from Isaak’s exhaust grate. Deep in his chest cavity, gears whined and springs clacked with enough violence that his metal plating shook for a moment. A low whine built, noticeable, but quieter than the last time Charles had heard him lie. “I was simply curious.”
Charles bit his tongue and turned his gaze back to the moon sparrow. He attached first one wing, then the other. “Well, I hope your curiosity is satisfied.”
The next sound from Isaak made Charles jump. It sounded unnatural, but it was obvious. Isaak had chuckled. “I doubt my curiosity shall ever be satisfied, Father.”
Now it was Charles’s turn to chuckle. “I think you may be right.” Then his thumb found the switch beneath that out-of-place feather. “But for now, let’s bend our curiosity towards your message.”