Machine (20 page)

“That doesn’t matter. You
were
born. Your very existence is a reminder of my weakness in succumbing to a human. I should’ve been stronger. I should’ve held out for a more appropriate mate, a woman who would bolster rather than thin my bloodline. And the final straw? You’re a twor. You’ll never take a Mongrel wife and produce the offspring I couldn’t.”

Fanule was momentarily dumbfounded. “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe you threw away our family for a pipe dream.
Your
family.” Fuming, he strode away from Zofen, then spun around to face him. “The Quam Khar haven’t existed in a pristine state for untold millennia. The same is true of all the ancient races. For gods’ sake, you’re the scholar. You should know that every Mongrel’s lineage is hopelessly muddled. We’re unique, yes, and that’s why we’ve had to endure marking and segregation and persecution. But we certainly haven’t been isolated from other races and subspecies!”

Leaning against the wagon, arms crossed over his chest and face set stubbornly, the old man gave Fanule a resentful, narrow-eyed look. He didn’t like hearing the truth. He was treating it as his enemy.

“Damn it!” Fanule shouted. “Your blasted delusion robbed us all, you and Mercy and me, of each other. Don’t you see that? It’s your arrogance that’s unadulterated, not your precious bloodline.” Leaning forward, Fanule rasped, “I… needed… a
father
,” stabbing his fingers against his chest with each word. He drew in a quavering breath, let it out, stood straight. Closed his eyes and summoned his control. “And Mercy needed a loving husband.” Fanule had all but exhausted his reserves of energy. His feelings began to flatten. “Why couldn’t you have given us what we needed? You would’ve received so much in return.”

“I don’t know,” Zofen said, nearly inaudibly. He sat on the wagon’s tongue.

“After you left us, did you keep trying to produce the perfect Mongrel offspring with a more ‘suitable’ mate?”

Zofen fired an indignant look at him. “How
dare
you ask me so personal a question!”

“And how dare you,” Fanule said frigidly, “deprive me of my lover and my best friend?”

Sullenly, Zofen stared at the ground.

There was nothing Fanule could do, nothing at all, except let his mixture of pity and contempt spill over Zofen and seep into the earth. Raging against this man, threatening him, even beating him would all be as pointless as trying to reason with him. He’d be gone soon, no matter what anybody did. And he’d be gone without fully realizing the enormity of his acts. Drawing in the Spark was, in his mind, what he was meant to do—a divine entitlement and natural imperative. Feeling sympathy for his victims likely made as much sense to Zofen as a hawk feeling sympathy for a field mouse.

A predator did not have a conscience.

And a man who considered himself a superior being felt no connection to beings he considered inferior.

Fanule sat beside him. The moment their shoulders touched, he wondered what it was like to be embraced by one’s father, to be told,
You’ve grown into a fine man. I couldn’t have asked for more.
He knew he’d never find out. A great gulf separated him and Zofen, not a finger’s breadth of space. Perhaps it was for the best.

“Please,” Fanule said with quiet ardor, “release William Marchman’s spirit. And Clancy Marrowbone’s. And all the others you’ve captured. Please, at least do that.”

Zofen looked at his interlinked hands. “I told you, I can’t. The Machine has them.”

“So they
are
in there,” Fanule said with a note of triumph, pointing up at the Spiritorium. “You’ve somehow found a way to warehouse the essences you’ve drawn out of people. You don’t have to keep them within yourself.”

“What difference does it make? The Machine has them, and there isn’t enough time to reverse its work. And I’m getting too weak to try.” Zofen held his hands before his face and studied them, front and back. Had he once had strong hands like Fanule, and could he feel that strength fading? “You’re right,” he said without a trace of self-pity. “I played the crooked cross, and the Hag caught me out. I’ll be paying the price for that very shortly.” He uttered a dismal laugh. “Actually, it will be a relief.”

It.
Death. “Why a relief?” Fanule asked with genuine curiosity.

Zofen’s mouth moved into a wan, private smile. “You’re an intelligent man. I believe you can figure that out.”

Yes, Fanule believed he could. Ironically, the gift of Second Agency seemed to have drained Zofen of his own essence. He must have realized, by exploring the internal landscapes of others, how flat and monochromatic his own had been, and how at odds with the rest of creation.

Trying not to waste still more of his compassion on a man who never felt compassion for others, Fanule turned his focus on the people who mattered.

“Reversing what you did has to be possible,” he said. “Anything that’s done can be
un
done.” He might’ve had to relinquish the notion of reaching a peace with his father, but he couldn’t give up on his father’s victims. Especially William, who had enriched his life in every way. “Where did you get the Machine? From the Hag?”

“No. The Hag only gave me the wagon. A Mongrel built the Machine, but not a Taintwellian Mongrel. One who lived far from the province of Purin and had learned how to put science at the service of magic. Or maybe it’s the other way around.”

“What does the Machine do?”

“It enhances my natural power.”

“How does it work?”

“Knowing that would do you no good, Fanule. The Hag will be recalling
all
my gifts. That means the wagon, too.”

Fanule didn’t want to disabuse him of that belief. If Zofen knew the Spiritorium would stay behind after he, the Spiritmaster, faded into oblivion, he might try to damage or destroy it out of spite.

If he had any spite left in him.

“I suppose you’re happy now,” Zofen muttered.

“No. I’m not happy at all. I got nothing I came here to get.” Impulsively, Fanule reached out and traced the lines of his father’s ear, lightly holding its soft edge between his thumb and forefinger. So beautiful. And so reminiscent of his own once-glorious ears.

At first Zofen flinched. Then he simply lowered his eyes and let the touch continue. “Why
were
yours docked?” he asked after Fanule withdrew his hand.

“When I was taken to the Truth and Justice Building to be marked, something happened that enraged me. So I sucked the light from the hallway in the subbasement. Shattered every electric bulb.”

The corners of Zofen’s mouth quirked up. “Good job,” he whispered.

Fanule felt a ridiculous blaze of pride at his father’s approbation. His eyes burned. He pinched his fingers over them.

Snowflakes began drifting through Howling Wood’s canopy. They fell lazily, almost reluctantly, as if knowing they’d melt on contact with man or wagon, tree or ground.

As if knowing nothing could last forever.

“It’s rather a shame that no one will mourn my second passing. At least the first time there was Pebblesworth.”

“My old schoolmaster?” Fanule asked in surprise.

“Yes. He was quite the sycophant. Went in search of me when he retired, determined to become my personal assistant.”

“Is he the one who brought you to—”

Brusquely, “Yes. But I made him swear to leave as quickly as possible after his final task was completed, and to take up residence overseas and never come looking for me again. His presence in my new life would’ve proved more of a hindrance than a help. Truth be told, I found him exceedingly banal.”

Always the user
, Fanule thought.

“How will my passing make
you
feel?” Zofen asked neutrally.

Fanule couldn’t interpret the tenor of the question. Like a cardsharp, Zofen was adept at concealing his hand. Still, Fanule decided to be frank. “I’ll mourn what it represents, all the missed opportunities. Beyond that—” He almost said,
“Good riddance, Papa
.
”
But he decided to voice a nobler thought. “My heart is with William. My mind is on making him whole again. Clancy Marrowbone, too.”

Zofen nodded and rose from his seat. Fanule followed. “I imagine people consider you a good man,” Zofen said. “I’m not sure I understand goodness, except in the abstract, but I think if I still lived in Taintwell, I’d hold my head a bit higher because you’re my son.” He braced a hand against the Spiritorium. “Go now. I prefer to be alone.” He took a deep breath and expelled it. “I do wish I could’ve seen your mother again. Just glimpsed her. Those remarkable green eyes….”

Rising wetness made Fanule’s vision waver, but he would not, would
not
let himself spare so much as a single tear for Zofen Perfidor. This man had taken untold numbers of people from their loved ones.

He walked away.

“Good-bye, Fanule,” he heard at his back. Or thought he did.

Then, in a recess of his mind, the Hag’s words surfaced.
“I have granted you more of an opportunity than you realize, sir.”

He turned but couldn’t quite make out Zofen’s form in the clearing. The snow had dropped a veil between them. “I always wanted so much to love you,” he confessed.

And that was the end of it.

Now it was up to the son to reverse the sins of the father.

F
ANULE
RODE
to the edge of the wood and gathered up the remaining compass flowers. A legend, he reasoned, always had an umbilical connection to fact. When he returned to the clearing, Zofen was gone. Gone without a trace. The Hag must somehow have known of the conversation between father and son, and reclaimed the father as soon as their talk was over.

The Spiritorium still stood in the clearing. Snowflakes continued to fall around it.

Fanule wished Lizabetta could be with him, but she was at his house, sitting with William. He had no familiarity with Zofen’s specialized Machine, had no one to provide guidance or make suggestions. He had only himself.

Now, too late, Fanule thought of what he could have done and probably should have done. Such as force his way into the Spiritorium while Zofen was still present to answer questions about it. Or demand the name and location of the Machine’s inventor.

Make the best of it.

Fanule slowly walked around the wagon, studying its fantastical exterior. It clearly was meant to attract crowds. But some of the figures looked slightly out of place, as if they weren’t original to the wagon but added at a later date. All were circular and evenly spaced, like medallions on a belt: moon, sun, clock face, hex sign, cat’s head, orange slice, eyes of every color, the faceted head of a diamond, the petaled head of a flower.

Fanule stopped in front of one and worked his fingers around the edge. The figure, which proved to be hinged, popped open like a lid. All he saw behind it was a tunnel of darkness.

A tube?

Heart thumping, he walked to the front of the wagon and peered up at its double doors. A short flight of portable wooden stairs led to them. He ascended the steps, unlatched one of the doors… and nearly tumbled backward onto the thin brown grass.

Fanule raised an arm to shield his face. Swirling clouds of mist and glowing color filled the wagon’s interior. A faint, atonal hum cut through the air. Scent twined through scent—pinecones and jasmine, black walnuts and linen and sweet ale. And more. Many more. Warily lowering his arm, he blinked against the dizzying assault on his senses. Solid forms began to take shape.

The most noticeable, a gold-plated chair, sat on a low, round platform roughly in the middle of the floor. A lever angled up beside it. On the other side lay a heap of bedding and a coldbox, so Zofen must also have slept and eaten in the wagon. Glove-like structures were attached to the chair’s arms, wires writhing from the fingertips, and shoe-like structures, also bristling with wires, were riveted to the floor at the base of the chair. Some kind of metal cap or helmet affixed to a bendable arm was centered over it. The headgear resembled something one might see at a masque. Decorative as much as practical, it extended to the middle of the nose and conformed to the structure of both face and skull.

Most telling was the large brass-and-bronze structure sitting before the platform, attached to a capsule-shaped metal container: the infamous Machine, no doubt. In addition to a whirlwind of wires, telescoping tubes of various widths wound all throughout the Spiritorium, so the Machine resembled a tentacled, metallic monster ready to attack whomever entered the wagon and sat in the chair.

No, it was actually attacking whomever was outside the Spiritorium, being drained of his or her essence. Each tube could somehow be directed to one of the cleverly concealed holes in the wagon’s walls and, from there, into whatever place was inhabited by the Spiritmaster’s victim.

“Gods,” Fanule breathed in disbelief. He imagined one of those tubes nosing its way into Marrowbone’s sleeping nook. He imagined one slithering through a window at Elva Scrubb’s boardinghouse. And he imagined Zofen in that throne-like chair, concentrating so hard he shook all over, while the dreadful Machine amplified his power.

Zofen’s Machine was a steam-powered vacuum pump with, apparently, a psychic dimension. Fanule had been to Simon’s repair shop often enough to recognize its shape, the flywheel and cranks, the belt driving the governor. He had more difficulty tracing the paths of the looping tubes. Not only were some positioned in front of the walls’ holes, where they squirmed as restlessly as gape-mouthed snakes, others led into large glass jars and bottles secured to shelves that were bolted to the walls.

“That’s them,” Fanule whispered, squinting against the luminous, shifting colors. He was about to flatten his hands on the bubbled glass of one receptacle and peer inside, but he flinched away at the last moment. Who knew what could affect these trapped essences, or in what ways?

Damn it, how could he safely free them?