Phoenix in Shadow - eARC (27 page)

Chapter 37

“Welcome to my laboratory,” Master Wieran said, with a dramatic gesture as he flung the doors wide.

Poplock bounced up on Kyri’s head for a better look. “Wow!”

The “laboratory” occupied an entire floor of the Valatar Tower, two levels above the entrance level; it was a ring-shaped room, its interior wall formed by the exterior wall of the
original
Tower, the one that had apparently housed the Great Light since before the founding of the country. But while that made the room impressively large, it was what
filled
the room that really caused everyone to stop and stare.

Laid out in geometric precision around the entire room was an incredible array of glass and crystal and metal equipment—retorts and beakers, distillation assemblies of tremendous complexity, crystalline enchantment matrices, summoning wardstones placed in precise arrays designed to be easily varied, an entire rack of objects that Poplock was
sure
were gemcalling matrices—with carefully sorted stones in divided trays beneath—shelves of books and scrolls and notebooks arranged just so, wide lab benches and experimental slabs adjustable to any angle and height.
Some of those slabs
, Poplock thought,
look like they’re for living creatures
.

There were small forges and fires, carefully set in broad workspaces with lots of safety margin; all manner of tools for cutting, grinding, mixing, and otherwise treating ingredients and materials for mystical experimentation; other things that looked like shrines to unknown gods, a workbench with neatly assorted and labeled components for clockwork mechanisms; magical designs worked into sections of the floor; and other things Poplock didn’t even have a good name for, except they looked really complicated. Faint scents drifted from various parts of the room—sharp, astringent smells, sweeter notes from herbs and dried flowers, pungent stenches of less-savory materials, all blending in a strange and unsettling mix.

“Wow,” he repeated. “I thought I’d seen some fancy workrooms before, but this makes ’em all look like the beginner’s kit.”

“Truly,” agreed Phoenix. “The Spiritsmith’s forge was great and held many amazing things, but this goes far beyond anything I have seen, as well.”

Master Wieran’s face showed a flicker of pride.
Yet something...something about the way he stands still looks funny
. “I have spent many years working on it; I would hope it would be as advanced and comprehensive as possible.”

“May we...look around, sir?” Tobimar asked.

“Certainly. Touch
nothing
, however, without my direct and express permission,” Wieran said warningly. “Some devices may appear inert, yet be functional; other experiments may seem robust yet be delicate. Disaster is easy to invite into a laboratory, and far more difficult to convince to leave.”

As they walked slowly around Weiran’s lab, more of it became visible—just as comprehensively complex as the rest. But one thing particularly caught Poplock’s eye. Lying on one of the adjustable tables was a very humanoid figure, but there was something...wrong with it, visible even at this distance. “Hey, what’s
that
?”

Wieran gave a thin smile. “Ah, I rather expected your eye would be drawn to that. Yes, that is an Eternal Servant in the process of construction. Come, I will show you some elements of its design.”

As the group approached, Poplock could see what had looked wrong; the object was strangely incomplete, with the lower portion—the rear half of the Eternal Servant—looking finished, and the front half clearly only partly complete. This allowed a sort of cross-sectional view of the humanoid construct.

Kyri bent close. “Why, it looks like it has
skin
! The other ones didn’t look like this.”

“Indeed,” Wieran said proudly. “The original Eternal Servants, while satisfactory in function, were sadly deficient in appearance. I have been constantly improving the design and function since they were first created. Did you examine any of the others closely?”

“Well, we were really only introduced to one,” Tobimar said. “What was the name...? Patina, that was it.”

“Name? Introduced?” Wieran snorted. “Names I suppose are convenient labels, but do not make the mistake of thinking that because they move and can speak that they are anything but mindless mechanisms. Which unit was this?”

“Number Fifty-Seven of Murnitenzei,” Hiriista said.

“Ah, I remember that one. I was experimenting with ceramic variants for covering. Very hard, durable, and with the right admixtures not overly frangible. A satisfactory design, but while possessing much ornamental utility did not meet the desire for more human-looking servants. Now
this,”
he pointed to the skinlike material, “is a far superior covering. Go ahead, touch it.”

Poplock bounced down and did so as the others took advantage of the invitation. “That’s
artificial
? It feels like real skin!”

“Indeed it is artificial! My own creation, a combination of distilled saps, a
touch
of naptha, proper application of heat, and just the right alchemical treatment which yields a substance that will feel just like natural skin,
breathes
like natural skin for certain purposes, is waterproof, much tougher than any ordinary skin, and with the right materials and mystical energy infusing the entire creation can repair itself like skin.”

“I’m more interested in the skeleton,” Poplock said, perching on an elevated tool tray above the table.

“The
armature
,” Wieran corrected with a bit of impatience, “is the central support as well as the channel for the mystical forces that motivate the entire Eternal Servant.”

Poplock squinted; along the silvery-glinting steel he thought he saw faint traces of gold-tinted blue-green. “Thyrium, I see.”

For just an instant he was sure he saw a narrowing of the ebony eyes, the sort that signaled a realization that one was more dangerous than suspected.
Oh, drought. I shouldn’t have said anything.

But the expression—if it was there—had disappeared even as he thought that. “An
excellent
eye, Poplock Duckweed. Am I correct, then, in assuming you are a student of arcane works?”

Mudbubbles! Okay, I guess I’ll have to just recover as much as I can.
“Well, I dabble a bit. Do clockwork stuff and I’ve fiddled around with alchemy. Really, I just noticed the similar lines here to the ones on Phoenix’s armor.”

“Hm. Well, yes, you are correct. Thyrium is not common but it takes very little, properly applied, to provide an excellent channel for all sorts of mystical forces.” He went on to describe how this allowed him to provide the mystical force for operating the Eternal Servant in one location but have it available throughout the device.

“If you don’t mind,” Tobimar said at a pause in the description, “I’m curious about what you said about the Servants being purely mechanisms. I can see they’re mechanisms, yes, but Patina spoke as if...it, I guess...was as intelligent as any ordinary person, and I’ve seen them performing a vast number of tasks. Some, like street-sweeping, might not be very hard to imagine being able to automate, I guess, but repairing stonework or cooking meals? These are complex tasks requiring judgment. I’ve heard of some magicians who have summoned or bound spirits to do such routine work, but those are still very much individuals, thinking beings, even if they’re not as bright as the average human being. So how are you achieving this effect without what I think of as the cause, so to speak?”

Wieran studied Tobimar for a moment, then smiled again. “A penetrating question which deserves a good answer,” he said finally.

I’m not sure I liked that smile. But was there
really
anything wrong with it, or is it just that I started out suspicious of him? I hate this kind of silt-clouded groping around.

Weiran led them to another part of the lab, this one with a tremendously complex mystical circle inscribed in it. Poplock studied the curving ranks of symbols and found himself, unwillingly, awed by what he saw.
I can’t even begin to figure out everything that circle does. It’s maybe the most intricate piece of magical design I’ve ever seen; makes the summoning circles for old Voory look like something a bird scratched in the dirt.

Wieran was speaking. “During the development of the Eternal Servants, I had to address precisely this problem. It is of course immoral to have living intelligent beings performing your drudgery without recompense or choice, yet if an insensate construct is to do so, there must be some means to give it the capability to perform many tasks while not giving it sentience.

“Thus, the Learning Array!
”
he gestured grandly to the circle. “Only someone of my genius—of which there are no equals!—could have devised this solution to that seemingly insoluble problem. Here, and in similar arrays, I brought skilled individuals of all the key trades. The Learning Array
impresses the entirety of their actions into these crystals here,” he pointed to a matrix of crystalline discs which appeared to have been cut from huge gemstones. “I would present them with different challenges for their procedures—a missing piece of pipe for a plumber, a deficient or spoiled ingredient for a cook, and so on—and by varying these parameters the Array was able to distill the task’s essence into a performance matrix—a matrix which I could then impress into all of the Eternal Servants.

“The matrices can be updated by the users or periodically by myself or my assistants, if and when desired,” Wieran went on. “For example, as we have mentioned cooking, a few years ago certain dishes emerged and became popular around Kaizatenzei; I had one of the best chefs of this particular cuisine come here and extend the envelope of the cooking performance matrix, allowing me to revise the matrix on the existing Servants who were used for cooking duties.”

He tapped a crystal on a low railing that surrounded the Learning Array. “Here, allow me to demonstrate. Master Tobimar, would you assist me?”

Poplock cursed inwardly. There was no good way to say “no” at this point, not with their displayed interest and avowed lack of suspicion of those in the higher echelons of power.

Tobimar
tried
, though. “Um...is it safe? My people are very nervous about magic applied to—”

“
Safe
?” Wieran looked scandalized—though to Poplock’s eye the expression was a bit overdone. “I tested it first on
myself
, and many citizens—including Miri and Hiriista, both of whom are here—have been in this Array. I should think it is safe!”

“What was he recording on
you
?” Kyri asked. “That is...you aren’t doing menial tasks, right?”

Miri laughed. “Oh, no, no. The Learning Array’s useful for so much more than that. Remember you were asking if you could get one of the summoning crystals or a farcaller stone? Well,
this
is where you can get one, and the Learning Array helps with that!”

Mud, mud, MUD and DROUGHT. Stuck with our own earlier words.

“Well...all right.” Tobimar took a breath and stepped in. “Does it...well, how does it
feel
when it’s working?”

“It should not
feel
like
anything,” Wieran said, a touch of exasperation in his voice. “The whole
point
is to record the normal performance of someone’s duty, or the normal signature of their essence, in the case of the crystals. If it felt odd, or painful, it could interfere with the data. Now...none of the Eternal Servants have ever been created with combat knowledge. If you could do a few simple combat moves, I can record those and give you a demonstration.”

Poplock had hopped off onto Kyri’s shoulder. He watched, trying to keep his face looking interested and carefree rather than grim, as Tobimar ran through a number of basic combat poses with his swords. The little Toad
was
pleased to note that Tobimar was sticking to poses not terribly unusual and certainly not connected with his
Tor
martial art.

After a few minutes, Wieran nodded. “Excellent. That will be sufficient for a demonstration.” He went to the matrix of crystal disks and inserted a small, multicolored crystal into a slot below. A moment later he took it out and brought it over to what was apparently a completed Eternal Servant. “Expansion of directives,” he said. “Provide access.”

The Eternal Servant bowed and then a panel in the chest opened; this Servant had skin that looked more like pebbly leather but was otherwise much more human-looking than Patina had been, so Poplock found it a bit disquieting to see a piece of its chest just pop out. Wieran reached out, inserted the crystal into something within the Servant’s chest, waited a few moments, and then pulled the crystal back out.

“Now,” he said, stepping back, “demonstrate your recent directive expansion.”

The Servant paused. “I do not have the requisite tools.”

Wieran nodded proudly. “You see! It recognizes that it is missing a key element of the task, yet refers to that element as ‘tools,’ not connecting it with anything else.” From a workbench nearby—
an enchanting bench, for making weapons I guess
—Wieran took two swords. “Use these.”

The Eternal Servant took the swords and moved its arms as though weighing them. “These are not identical; some loss in efficiency will result.”

“Acceptable. Proceed.”

Instantly the Eternal Servant ran through the exact set of exercises that Tobimar had, duplicating his gestures precisely.
Well, that’s impressive.

“As you can see, right now it is extremely limited; there is no context showing the Servant that this is meant for use against an adversary; there is nothing to demonstrate the need to vary the approach, timing, and other aspects. To actually train a Servant to be a warrior would require two or more people in the Array, then tuning it to ignore all but the exemplar, and then a number of varied battle scenarios to generate a sufficiently flexible and defined envelope of operations. But I think it serves the purpose, yes?”

“Sure does,” Poplock said.
The question
I’ve
got is what purpose it served for
you
.
He was also not entirely convinced that this would work to cover all the varied circumstances that such an automaton would encounter...but then, they hadn’t followed any of the Eternal Servants around for any length of time; possibly they had routines to ask someone when they met some new situation.