Chapter 8 #3
I thought Merulo would lose it then and there.
Instead, the sorcerer spun, his cape a billowing shadow in the fog, leaving his back exposed to the knights with an insulting lack of caution.
His stone eye flashed. From the fog, a humanoid construct emerged, carrying a rectangular metal object.
At the sight of it, my feathers stood on end.
Another relic. The device was of pre-Descent craftsmanship, sporting a glass front with a curved opaque handle beside a grid of neatly aligned squares.
An odd rope dangled beneath the object, like a grotesque umbilical cord.
“Oh yes,” the chancellor breathed, his composure finally breaking. “Yes, this will do well. Does it work?”
Merulo scoffed. “Of course not. None of the ancient technology has ever worked.” His voice had pitched curiously high on the last words, and I narrowed my eyes, wondering if I’d caught the sorcerer in a lie.
Regardless, the exchange took place. After the construct passed the device to a nervous-looking knight, it moved to the books, piling them in its arms with careful precision. Both the chancellor and the sorcerer stepped back to allow this.
Jovial now, Chancellor Noor waved my way. “It’s rare to see you with a creature not made of wood. Tamed yourself a pet, hm?”
“Oh no,” said the sorcerer, with all the satisfaction of someone biting into ripe fruit. “That would be Sir Cameron.”
The chancellor went rigid. With obvious effort, he smiled. “That wouldn’t happen to be—”
“The Sir Cameron of the prophecy? The Sir Cameron your forces were hoping to use as—how did he put it—the final ingredient in my defeat? Yes, that is him.” Merulo could not have looked prouder of himself if he tried.
“Hello, your excellence,” I squawked helpfully, before remembering that Merulo had commanded me to stay mute. Ah, well, I’d already broken the order. “So sorry that you nice folks don’t get to kill me.”
“Given your current position,” the chancellor said, recovering from his stunned silence. “I’m not sure that I would not prefer death.”
Double negatives confused me, so I did not respond. “You could have saved the world, Sir Cameron.” The chancellor regarded me with hooded eyes. “Enjoy being the plaything of this, this . . .” He let a gesture complete his words.
“Well thank you, your excellence, I sure will,” I shot back, then winced in anticipation. But no pain came from the embedded needle, and when I chanced a glance at the sorcerer, he seemed to be hiding a smirk behind one bone-white hand.
My father would have been incandescent with rage, hearing me talk so discourteously. It said something about Merulo’s power that I could taunt a chancellor and his knights without repercussions.
A familiar clattering sounded, and the equine construct emerged from the fog.
It came to a halt before the sorcerer, glaring its witch-light eyes at the assembled knights.
One of the constructs broke formation, stomping over, then lowered to all fours beside it, as if prostrating in grief or supplication. Merulo used it as a stepping stool.
The knights dissolved back into the fog as the sorcerer mounted, apparently eager to flee this cursed setting.
“Come along then, plaything,” Merulo called.
“And you get mad at me for making things sexual,” I squawked, before remembering myself. “My lord.” I pushed off from the rocky ground to land once more on the construct’s rear end.
Again, no pain from the needle. I wondered if he’d forgotten about it.
Fog closed around us, granting a semblance of privacy. I decided to push my luck. “My lordship, I’ve been meaning to ask. Since you’re pretty much at war with the whole concept of ‘order,’ I don’t suppose you have a problem with . . . how to put this . . .”
At the trepidation in my voice, the sorcerer looked at me with interest.
“You know . . .” I waggled my head on my serpentine neck, wishing I had eyebrows. “Men being with men?”
“Enough,” he hissed, and I snapped my beak shut.
The mad sorcerer twitched with impatience as we rode.
The reason for this soon became clear, as the book-laden construct marched closer and handed over the top-most text.
Bouncing as we were over the uneven ground, I feared he’d drop it, but his bloodless grip proved strong.
He swiveled in his seat to brandish the relic at me. “Do you have any idea what this is?”
The glassy cover looked worn, peeling at the edges. A shiny red apple served as the focal point, beneath a shooting star. Two youths completed the scene, their mouths open in exaggerated awe, hands clasped to their cheeks. Though terribly ugly, the painting was extraordinary in its realism.
“Do you have any idea?” the sorcerer repeated.
“No, of course you don’t. Physics. The ancient mysteries of time and space.
The primordial forces that ruled our land before the Descent of God.
” Passion left him breathless, and I was struck by his eagerness to share.
The sorcerer typically didn’t talk to me with this level of enthusiasm.
“I thought the heretical texts were purged, my lord,” I said, with some hesitance.
Glenda had told me that, after I’d accidentally admitted to my ignorance of, well, everything.
I knew this much, though: “Reading one would be a crime against, like, humanity itself. Who in their right mind would have protected these books for so long?”
“Historians. Librarians. Merchants dealing in black goods. Wealthy families passing along unspeakable heirlooms, enchanted for preservation over the centuries. And of course, those who despise God, and wish to see it burned from this world like the infection it is.” The sorcerer looked suddenly older, his surge of energy leaving him.
“There have always existed those who hate God.” Bringing the heavy book to his lap, the sorcerer manipulated it open single-handed, and began to read.
As the construct clopped up the incline, swishing its bristle-twig tail, I claw-walked across its driftwood back to speak more directly to the sorcerer.
“My lord, I figured it out.” I snaked my neck, trying for eye contact. “Why you hate me. You’re just mad that I don’t actually care about slaying God, or whatever.”
“That is disappointing,” he admitted.
The remainder of the ride, we spent in silence.