Psalms of Isaak 01 – Lamentation

The truth, the Seventeenth Gospel said, is a seed planted in a field of stones beneath a stone and guarded by snakes. To have at it, be strong enough to move the stone, patient enough to dig the hole and fast enough to dodge the viper’s fang.

He would continue his excavation when the boy woke up, when he could be sure that there were no ears or eyes but their own. And he would not forget that vipers came in many shapes and sizes.

Jin Li Tam

For Jin Li Tam, the seventh forest manor and the town that surrounded it teemed with rainbow-colored life. The house itself was set upon a slight rise, and the town around it gathered in close-a collection of cobblestone streets and one- or two-story buildings made of finely planed lumber, and glass windows painted in a multitude of colors. The people wore cottons primarily, though she occasionally saw the silks that her own Emerald Coasts were famous for.

She wondered why she’d never visited before, but quickly brushed that thought aside. There’d been no reason to. The Gypsies kept to themselves, far from the machinations and intrigues of the Named Lands. Once in a while, she’d heard of Rudolfo riding south with his scouts to attend various functions. But they were never the functions she attended, and for the most part the Ninefold Forest Houses kept to their edge of the world.

She walked the streets alone, mindful of the scouts who followed her at an appropriate distance. They meant to give her the illusion of independence, but she suspected that it wouldn’t take much to bring them running. Of course, this far from the war, she should be safe enough. The scouts weren’t even magicked.

As she walked, Jin listened to the voices around her, picking up fragments of day-to-day life in the forest. A patchwork quilt of hunting stories, rumors about the war and about Windwir, bits of gossip about who was sleeping with whom and what so-and-so’s son had seen limping about the seventh forest manor.

Jin paused.

“He was dressed as an Androfrancine, he said. But made entirely of metal.”

She had wondered how long before the secret was out. Certainly, most people were familiar with the mechanicals that the Androfrancines had gradually revealed to the world. Small things like the bird her father kept in their indoor gardens, beneath the crystal dome. The little golden bird was unlike any other she had ever seen, and it could sing in sixteen languages. It could also say small phrases-simple things like asking for water it could not drink or food that it could not eat. It had been a gift from one of the Popes, she thought, years ago.

But Isaak was different. Fully the size of man-perhaps even a head taller than average-slender yet solid in build, and perhaps the most amazing spectacle she had ever seen. At one time, according to some of the heresies, there were nearly as many metal men as people. Those were the days long, long before the Age of Laughing Madness. But when P’Andro Whym walked the ruined basement of the world with his scattered band of diggers and scribes, the metal men were all but extinct.

And now they’d been brought back-at least, a handful had. And if Rudolfo had his way, she realized, those few-built from the parchments and scraps found in the Wastes-would be here, helping Isaak rebuild what Sethbert had destroyed.

“Lady Tam,” a voice said beside her. She looked. One of the scouts had slipped to her side.

She looked at him. He was young but not a pup, and unlike Sethbert’s Delta Scouts, Rudolfo’s men did not swagger. “Yes?”

“The…” He paused, looking for the right words. “Isaak would like to see you.”

She was surprised. She’d seen him just an hour before and had asked after his planning and his correspondence with the Androfrancines. “Very well.”

She walked the half league back to the manor and met Isaak in the courtyard garden. He held a scrap of paper in his hands and s hie w he stood there, eye shutters blinking at it.

“What is it, Isaak?” she asked, stepping toward him.

The metal man limped toward her, his dark robe hiding the angles of his lean steel frame. “I’ve word from the Papal Summer Palace,” he said. His eyes flashed open and shut.

“That was very fast,” she said.

“It was not in response to the message.”

Curious, she thought. “What word does it bring?”

Steam blasted from his exhaust grate. “It is a Papal edict, decreeing that all remaining Order resources and personnel are to be inventoried at the Papal Summer Palace.”

She felt her brows furrow. “How can that be? Surely the Pope is dead?”