Tim Lebbon: Dawn

The creation went on for a long time. Angel and S’Hivez made the first few machines together, merging ideas and raw materials to make several similar constructs: four legs, tall as a Krote, fire vents and slots that could eject sharpened discs. Then Angel suddenly jumped into the harbor, sinking beneath the water and raising a wave that crashed against the mole. When she lifted herself back out on a column of steam, she drew a ruined ship up from the depths along with her. Its timbers bent to her will: its rusted metal twisted and shed its coating. Ropes and chains swirled about her head, and she clothed her new machine in a dead hawk’s hide. It seemed a mess, but when she motioned a Krote across and joined her with the new machine, its ropes began to whip and its chains to flail.

The Krote stood on the thing’s back and urged it toward a timber house at the harbor’s edge. In the space of a few heartbeats, the house was in ruins.

As Angel moved on to another creation, the waterfront was soon lit by various fires as the Krotes experimented with their weapons of war. A couple of buildings erupted into flames, but mostly the warriors kept the fire to themselves, learning how to manipulate their machines’ limbs, bodies or other parts-juggling flame, swiping with cutting things, becoming accustomed to the poison vents in their mounts’ hides or the places where discs and arrows could be loaded and ejected. The whole scene was cast onto the water as grotesque, dancing shadows.

Lenora walked her own machine amongst her Krotes, already comfortable with how it felt beneath her, and how she could touch its most basic mind with her own. But this was far different from the hawks, she realized. This thing was not really alive. It had not evolved or grown out of nature: it had been created, and it had no purpose other than to follow her bidding. It would not require food or water, sleep or rest. Lenora thought back to the final days of the Cataclysmic War. The Mages’ machines had been mighty, but there had been something missing from them that was already evident in these new constructs: a spark of consciousness. The war machines of old, driven by magic though they were, had relied on their riders to initiate every move, gears and magical power routes cast into their bodies and often subject to fault or damage. Now these new machines were part construct, part animal. They had the stone and metal, flesh and blood of the old machines, but these conjoined elements were more than just building blocks; they made the machines whole.

The Mages had twisted their new magic even further than before.

WITH EVERY KROTE now riding a new machine, Conbarma was in ruins. Much of the harbor had been torn up, buildings were leveled, traces of hawk flesh lay across the ground and the sky itself seemed to be burning from the fires erupting around the town. The Krotes were reveling in this new experience, and the Mages seemed content with that.

Lenora maneuvered her machine in front of a tall, striding thing and questioned the Krote sitting high above her. “Have you seen the Mages?”

“No, Mistress.”

Lenora frowned and looked around. The fires lit the sky and deepened shadows. Every Krote was now mounted on his or her machine, and there was no sign of anyone walking.

“Mistress…I never knew it would be like this.”

Lenora looked up at the Krote. He was young, tall and dark-skinned, only slightly scarred by battle. “Whatdid you think it would be like?”

He shook his head. “I had no idea. I’d heard all the stories, read the histories, but this is suchpower. ” He lowered his voice and leaned closer, as if that would hide his next comment. “How can the Mages give all this to us?”

“They’ve given us nothing,” Lenora said. “Only a taste of what they have. We control the machines, not the magic that made them. Never forget that.”

“But I canfeel it!”

“Neverforget that!” Lenora said again, harsher than she had intended.

The young Krote’s eyes flickered down, then he looked at her again and nodded. “Mistress.”

“Now go on your way. I’ll be issuing a call to meet soon enough. Practice with your mount. Get its feel, discover its movement and limitations, if it has any.” She examined the machine, trying to make out details in the flickering light. “It’s tall, so it should be a good runner. And those legs are barbed and sharp. You’ll be able to cut down our enemies like fields of corn.”

“I’ve never seen corn,” he said.

“You will.”

She saw the Mages then, emerging from between two squat stone buildings farther along the harbor. They watched the Krotes, and though they were illuminated by various dancing fires, still there was a darkness between them, darker than twilight and immune to the fires shining from a dozen different angles. Even from this far away, Lenora could see the twinkle of Angel’s eyes, but the shadow hanging at her side gave away nothing.

Lenora steered her machine their way, walking slowly to match their pace. S’Hivez stared up at her, his expression unchanging, and it took only heartbeats for her to avert her gaze.

“It’s quite an army we’re building here,” Angel said.

“Unbeatable,” Lenora said.

“Of course.” Angel nodded and stared at her lieutenant. Her face was young, the skin barely marked by time, and she seemed to glow with some inner truth only just discovered.

What the fuck isthat? Lenora thought. The air between the Mages seemed to belong somewhere else. It was dark and calm, untouched by fire or moonlight, but flowing with its own particular threads of illumination.

“A soul unborn,” S’Hivez said. “Aborted by nature and cast aside.”

“It’s a shade,” Lenora whispered. The thing held no real shape, though occasionally it seemed to find form for a few heartbeats. Each form was familiar but unrecognizable, as though Lenora was viewing dreams long forgotten.

“It’s part of a shade that we’ve brought into the world,” Angel said. The shadow slipped around her shoulder and down her front, pooling at her feet. “We’re leaving this with you, Lenora. Soon S’Hivez and I must go, but there’s a lot more work to be done for our main army’s arrival. There are plans to be made, and machines to be built, and-”

“Why are you going?” Lenora said.

“Don’t question our actions,” Angel said, her voice low and even.

Lenora looked down at her hands. The machine settled slightly below her, as if it too was cowed by the Mage’s words. “Mistress.”

“We have our reasons, just as we have reasons for leaving this shade. It has a touch of our magic. Just a touch, but enough to draw up machines and carry on our work.”

“I could do it,” Lenora said. The Mages were silent, so she continued. “I could give life to the machines, make our army. With magic.” Her words terrified her, but to have even ahint of what they had, anecho…

I could help my child, she thought. Her daughter’s shade, floating out there somewhere, abandoned and never alive. What I could do with that!

S’Hivez growled.

“We’re here to fight a war with Noreela,” Angel said. If she knew what Lenora had been thinking, she gave no sign. “If we hand magic to any living thing, that thing becomes our enemy.”

“I would never-”

“You wouldn’t be able to help yourself.” Angel and S’Hivez started to walk away, leaving the shade flexing its shadows across the ground.

“Is that it?” Lenora said.

Angel glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Almost. Watch.”

The Mages parted and paused at the entrance to a road leading into the heart of Conbarma. The Krotes had seen their approach and quietly moved away, giving the Mages room to work. There was a sense of anxiety in the air, a promise of change.