The Clockwork

In all of these accounts, this memoir I find myself creating, my favorites are those that chronicle the meeting of one of my great allies. I believe it is because those who become my mates constantly create new memories of love, but those who turned into friends and allies have the initial meeting of passion, and there it remains as our relationship turns to something else. Think of such figures as Jerrika Grendel, Isellynor Greenhaven, and Syventyth the Eater of Armies to understand what I mean. Lovers once, later boon companions.

This is one such tale. It began some months after my escape from the hippodrome when I started my career as a boldisar. Or perhaps I had restarted it, depending how one thinks of it. I rode a qobad, a reward I accepted from a small village not far from Ghanappur after I slew a bandit that had been troubling them. My steed was a hen, and an even-tempered one at that. I named her Ksenaëe in a fit of grandiosity or sentimentality. I would keep her unto her old age, and she would spend her dotage pampered in a stable in far Zuunkhorun.

I had found myself in what was either a small city or a big town called Inhirnas that rested at the entrance to a series of canyons. The castle was little more than a watchtower at the crest of a hill, an inner wall at the base of the hill surrounding it, then another wall about the township.

No one in this place needed the services of a boldisar, and I intended to stay only long enough to fill my skins with water and acquire enough food to last me for a trek across the wastes. I did not know if anyone from Ghanappur was pursuing me, but I thought putting distance between it and me was a good idea. I had no desire for a quest. Which is why one inevitably found me.

I was at the water merchant, haggling over his dregs, for the quality of water did not matter to one with a sweetwater goblet.

"You are a boldisar?" The voice came from behind me.

I could understand the assumption. I certainly cut the silhouette. My qobad carried a single fur for the frigid Kharsoomian nights. I wore my kilt and boots, and I had added a wide and shallowly-conical hat, the best approximation of headwear I had worn in the Ocaital. Where it once kept the rain off me, now it did the same for the sun, and that made it precious. My spear, Ur-Anu, finished the image, a weapon of obvious magical power. I was a wandering warrior, owning only enough to keep me alive.

The man addressing me wore a copper slave collar with a few gilded sections spaced at irregular intervals. He was slender, but muscled, with a single braided scalplock growing from his crown. He wore a simple harness, with a pair of fighting hooks hanging from it, and a single golden bracelet.

"I am."

"Lord Malab requests the honor of your presence in his castle."

"Don't have much use for nobles," I said.

The water vendor sucked in a shocked breath. "I beg you, boldisar, for my master, come and hear his entreaty," said the lord's man.

I was unused to humility from a Kharsoomian, even a slave, and especially to a barbarian. I was intrigued. "Very well. Lead the way."

He bowed to me, and we made our way through the town. "One thing I can promise you, boldisar, you will not need to drink that muddy slop you were purchasing from that thief. My lord will allow you to fill your skins from his own cisterns."

"I am fortunate."

A momentary frown passed over his features at my neutral tone.

The guards at the gate to the castle waved us in. I relinquished Ksenaëe to the grooms. She protested with a squawk, but I patted the base of her neck, something that never failed to calm her. She hissed, which although it sounded like an angry snake, was the bird expressing happiness. My escort led me into a modest hall at the base of the tower where the lord awaited with two women. I judged the one without the collar to be his wife.

He was younger than most of the lords I had encountered, his hair a glossy blue-black and his belly still relatively flat. His jewelry was modest, though I noted a strange motif, the gold shaped into gear-like designs.

"Boldisar," he said with a welcoming smile. "Please, make yourself welcome. I am Lod Malab of Clan Palisiah."

I had begun to recognize Kharsoomian clans, and though I would never truly understand their labyrinthine politics, I knew the Palisiah to be enemies of the El, which put me somewhat at ease.

"I am Ashuz. Your man said you wanted something."

"Yes, why waste time?" Lord Malab said without malice. He looked to my escort. "Mutesh, if you would notify the kitchens. This brave warrior could use a hearty repast."

Mutesh bowed and moved off. "Thank you, my lord, but a meal is unnecessary. I'd like to hear your offer." And leave, was the unspoken part of the sentence, but I believe Malab heard it.

"Ashuz, please meet my wife, the Lady Iltani, and my concubine Ku-Baba." The two Kharsoomian women, both lovely, curtsied to me. I gave a short bow. "I beg of you, noble boldlisar, enjoy our hospitality. I will make my request of you, but I would not have my castle be known as a place where the customs are not respected."

I was hungry, and a meal in a castle was better than the dried lizard meat I had planned to eat. I relented. I would enjoy the lord's hospitality. I sat at the table where the Malab, his wife and concubine joined us.

"Tell us a tale, Ashuz," Ku-Baba said.

"Forgive her," said Iltani, looking at the woman with genuine affection. "She loves all the old stories."

"How about a tale of a dryad?" I asked.

This was acceptable, and I was well into the story when slaves entered, carrying platters of food. For a castle in Kharsoom, it was a modest feast. Kharsoom was not a land of plenty, but nobles often liked to pretend, especially with guests. I was hungry and ate gratefully. When the food and my tale were finished, Malab rose from the table.

"Please, Ashuz, come with me and I will explain the errand I require."

I nodded to the two women and followed Malab from the room. "There was a time when this area was lush farmland, did you know that?"

"It was my understanding that Kharsoom was a land of abundance until the gods died."

He made a dismissive noise. "Superstitious nonsense. Khaesoom was once a great center of learning, with knowledge of secrets unknown to lesser lands. It was not gods who cost us our birthright, but greed and war and all manner of mortal foolishness. Those calamities cost us our knowledge and turned meadow into waste."

"I see," I said.

He smiled. "You are a barbarian, and unused to such stories of Kharsoom's glorious yesterdays. Forgive me, I could not begin to guess your last of origin."

"Qammuz."

He stared at me in confusion, then broke into a chuckle. "Not many barbarians know anything of Qammuz. You are an educated man then, after a fashion. Very good, yes. Qammuz. They often get credit for the inventions of Kharsoom."

I had heard it the other way around from Zhahllaia, who had been there, but I didn't think it wise to bring that up. He led me into the bowels of his tower, continuing to speak. He was at the edge of a rant, but never fell over into the unreasoning anger such a thing implies. Rather, I felt in him a sense of listless grief, a past he wished to recapture yet never truly understood.

As the lower levels expanded, I noted that the bulk of the castle appeared to be entirely underground. This excavation was likely done centuries after the initial construction, transforming what had been a simple watchtower into a dwelling worthy of a lord. Malab's holdings were modest, yet the subterranean parts of his castle were undeniably grand.

"It is my belief that recapturing these discoveries is key to once again placing Kharsoom above the barbarian lands," he said as we reached the terminus of another stair.

"I thought Kharsoom was already above them." I said carefully. Though, to my eyes, Kharsoom was a savage wasteland, to its inhabitants it was a land of unparalleled refinement.

"Culturally perhaps," Malab said. "In other regards, I do not share my people's lofty opinion. I am not the only one who thinks this way."

"I had not known."

"Where I differ is in method. Most believe the solution is magical, but Kharsoom has so few wizards these days such things are difficult to study."

My memory jumped unbidden to something Phaeliope had told me in far Axichis. They too had been producing fewer wizards, and by the time of the Turquoise Conquest, had stopped altogether. I wondered then if this was a sign of a failing civilization. I could not know how close my supposition was to the truth.

As the hill had grown fatter at the base, so too had the corridors widened and the chambers multiplied. Finally, when we were deep in the earth, we came to a heavy door, banded with iron. Then he did something remarkable. He knocked.

He did not wait for an answer, only pausing between knock and opening, but the knock itself from a Kharsoomian lord in his own castle was one of the more remarkable sights I had ever beheld.

An expansive workshop waited on the other side, the air redolent with lightning and oil. As we walked in, we came to a railing, and I noted that the entryway was in fact a balcony overlooking a central chamber. I saw no method of organization here, merely a collection of benches and tables, scattered with strange devices and parchment covered with cramped writing. A central table held a shape covered by a sheet, strange looming devices all about. Machines hummed, the likes of which I had never seen, and would not until the rise of Hegal-Toth. The strangest aspect of this place was that I smelled not the slightest hint of magic. Its absence was a scent of its own, disorienting to one so used to its touch.

Scuttling from bench to bench and device to device was a gnarled and gnomelike Kharsoomian woman. Her back was hunched, her skin wrinkled. She wore a leather apron in addition to her harness, as well as an elaborate head set with a collection of lenses that could be moved in front of her baleful eyes. Most notably, she wore no collar.

"Paldina," he called. "A boldisar has come."

"A boldisar," she sneered. "Don't let him touch anything."

"No, Paldina... for our errand."

The old woman looked up, moving a lens from her eye to peer up at us. The eye still carried a squint, but they were a bright amber. "I see. Well, bring him down."

Malab led me down a spiral staircase onto the floor of the workshop. Workshop was a reductive term. This was a laboratory, the finest I had seen to this point. This place was where Malab spent his money, and judging by the wealth of inventions scattered about, he was getting his money's worth. I was no great understander of politics, but I still believe I was seeing the corners of Clan Palisiah's massing of strength against Clan El.

Paldina went to the table draped with a sheet. The shape beneath looked almost human. I shivered, wondering what she would show. I smelled no decay in the air, but I would believe she had ways of staving such things off.

"In the old days of Kharsoom," Malab said quietly, "We had no need of slaves. Our labor was done by golems."

"Golems are no great secret," I said. Such creatures were not common, but they were far from unknown, with several methods that could lead to their construction. When I had been a wizard, I had considered eventually learning their secrets.

"These were," said Paldina. "Better than any kind you've heard of, for they had no need of magic. No need of the divine. A child could make one with a proper kit." She moved the sheet aside, revealing a half-finished human shape. The body looked formed of a combination of wood, porcelain, gold, and iron, and was missing a left arm and a right leg. The face was stylized, looking more like a mask than a face. Its hair was ribbons. It was as much a functional object as it was a work of art. I had not thus far been impressed by Paldina, but one look at this creature told me I was in the presence of no small amount of intelligence and skill.

"I don't understand why you need the services of a boldisar," I said.

Malab looked at Paldina, and for the first time, the crone looked self-conscious. "Yes, well," she said. "The old golems had minds, proper ones, built of strange metals and arcane maths. They thought, and felt, and knew. It is a delicate process to create them. I managed it once."

"But it escaped," Malab blurted.

"Escaped," I said. "Make another."

"When it left, it absconded with my notes," Paldina said. "The knowledge in there was the result of decades of learning and experimentation. A lifetime of work really. It is irreplaceable. If I am to create a golem, as my lord commands, I need either notes or golem."

"And both should be in the same place," said Malab, smiling hopefully at me.

"You want me to retrieve them," I said.

"Oh, this one is quick," said Paldina. "He should be able to find them without any trouble."

"Paldina, please. Now is not the time. Boldisar, what say you?"

Curiosity had seized me, that explorer spirit that had never truly left me even when everything else did. I wanted to see this golem, to understand if Paldina's craftsmanship was as remarkable as I believed. "Yes, I will do this."

"Wonderful! You can depart in the morning."

Malab promised me payment for my task, some silver and the food and water it was customary to gift a passing boldisar. He gave me the use of cozy quarters on the upper levels of his tower. I started a fire in the hearth, stripping off my meager clothing. I cannot explain it, but to be nude before a fire in a chill Kharsoomian night is its own thrill. I had settled down onto the furs before the blaze when a knock came at the door.

"Come in."

A lovely woman entered. She wore only a slave collar and a narrow chain belt. She had smooth deep olive skin and long black hair, and a bit of silky fleece at the apex of her thighs. Her breasts were round and upturned, her nipples hard. Tattoos at the corners of her mouth marked her as Lixhan. I thought of my Ixem. I longed for her, and perhaps this night, I might pretend this fetching creature was she.

"You are the lord's bedslave," I said.

She curtsied. "Ohtli."

"Ohtli," I said. "Come here."

She joined me on the fur rug by the fire. She shivered, and I merely held her gently, stroking her buttery skin. "How do you wish to use me, brave boldisar?"

"Be with me for a time," I said.

"As you wish," she said, cuddling closer. Our bodies fit together, and soon I found my arousal growing. When I finally took her on that soft rug before the roaring flames, I found her sweet and pliable. Her cries were music, her bliss shattering. Then we slept.

I set out from Inhirnas the following morning laden with provisions. Malab had provided me a map of the network of canyons where he believed the golem had fled, but it was far from complete and contained many sections I would later find to be entirely wrong. The rest would be up to my skills as hunter and tracker. Though the terrain was different, I was grateful for my time in the steaming jungles of Uazica for allowing me to hone these abilities.

The canyons were a maze. I could understand how the golem had chosen them for refuge and why the maps were so woefully incomplete. I scoured the game trails for weeks, hunting for signs of my quarry. I found only bare rock and punishing sun. I almost despaired, readying myself to return to Lord Malab in defeat when I felt eyes upon me.

It is difficult to define that sensation, but I believe everyone has felt it at one time or another. It is a weight upon the back of the neck, a slight tickle like the touch of a djinn. Ur-Anu never traced a thread along the viewer's fate, so I was comfortable with the idea that I was in no immediate danger. The watcher was apparently content to watch.

A week or two after the initial feeling, I began to notice tracks. They weren't mine nor did they belong to my qobad. They had the shape of human prints, but the weight was all wrong. Not only was the individual heavier than the size would indicate, the weight rested in the wrong places. I briefly thought of how proud Velena or Chala would be of me, as my time in exile had honed more than my fighting abilities.

Then finally, almost two months since I had left Lord Malab, I saw a silhouette on a ridge. I made for it instantly, but by the time I rode to its position, the figure was gone. The tracks, though, were plain. I followed the trail for as long as I could, losing it over a rocky stretch of ground. The shape appeared again the following day, closer. And then closer.

It was one chilly morning when I awoke by the embers of my fire, my head resting on Ksenaëe's feathery flank, when I first beheld my quarry.

She, and I could no longer use the pejorative "it" with such a creature, was only just close enough to begin to make out features. Her basic silhouette was feminine, though her waist was smaller than any woman's could be. I would find later it was little more than a swivel, granting her incredible mobility. Discrete parts of her body were shapely, but invariably where there were joints, her artificiality was laid bare.

"What do you want?" Her voice was next to me but she had not moved.

"Lord Malab bade me find you."

"You should have lied."

"Perhaps. I imagine you would have seen through it. Better be honest now and start from a place of trust."

"I will not return to Inhirnas. I fled for a reason."

"I wondered."

She was silent for a time. When she was still, it was the stillness of the inanimate, with none of the tiny movements of life. She could be uncanny, and in the time before we were friends and allies, I found myself unnerved by her inhumanity. Yet at no point did Ur-Anu warn me of attack and lay out the dance of death that would render her permanently still.

"What will you do then?"

"My name is Ashuz, sometimes called Blackspear." I paused and couldn't help myself. "Sometimes called Farmer. I am not unreasonable, but I am determined. If you leave now, I will continue to hunt you. But if you speak to me, I will listen."

"Speak to you how?"

"Escaping slavery is no crime. But only a person can be enslaved. An object cannot."

She was silent again. Later I would find that when she was quiet like this, a soft whisper of whirs, clicks, and flutters came from her. "Your terms are accepted. I am Kushan-Hegal."

She approached, and I could see her more clearly. Every portion of her body was of sculpted porcelain, occasionally spiderwebbed with cracks. Her joints were exposed clockwork gears of shocking copper and gold against the bone white of her body. Paldina, if she truly was the sculptor, had given her a shapely chest, pelvis, and legs. Her hair was a mane of ribbons, varying shades of blue like a cascade of water.

Her face was the most interesting part of her, a feat of unparalleled craftmanship. The panels of porcelain were tiny, and as she changed expression, pieces moved about, some sliding beneath others to subtly alter the layout of her visage. As they moved, I could occasionally catch glimpses of the whirring clockwork gears beneath.

Her mouth appeared to be coated in something soft, and within, I saw an agile tongue, that I would later learn was of a shocking length. Her eyes were the most beautiful part of her. Opals, they resembled the stones set into the circles at the base of my spear's blade. They were night skies, impossibly deep and vast.

"Well met," I said. "Make your case."

"Not here," she said. "I have something I wish to show you."

I swung myself into the saddle, and spurred Ksenaëe to her side. "Lead on."

My qobad squawked once as we approached the clockwork, but that was the limit to her protests. It was as though she wanted to warn me that we were nearing a creature that should make me nervous but unaccountably did not. A warning to her master, too foolish to recognize danger.

Kushan-Hegal was faster and more surefooted than any human could be as she made her way over the cracked earth. I saw then why I had lost her trail so many times. She could lengthen her stride until it was nearly a series of leaps without ever losing her grace. She moved with machined precision, incredible power in her limbs. She would be a terrible foe, and I couldn't help but wonder if she had killed any of Lord Malab's guards on the way out.

We traveled for the bulk of the day through the maze of canyons and even my tireless qobad was beginning to flag by the time the sun vanished above. Kushan-Hegal led me to an opening in the side of the canyon up a nearly invisible pathway. I do not believe I would have found it without her guidance.

I had to dismount, leading the bird into the cave. She gave another squawk, protesting at the close environs, but she dutifully went. I followed the uncanny creature down the narrow passage until on the other side, it opened up onto another canyon. This one was smaller than the others, hidden from every side, really more of a pit.

A settlement had been built in the rocky environs. Unlike everything else in Kharsoom, this was entirely new. Rooms had been carved into the wall of the canyon, with wide, white sails catching the air. A great, tentacled flag writhed at the lip of the canyon throwing most of the floor into cool shade. I thought of standing above on the ridge, and I imagined that the sight would be like an aquatic creature surfacing from the waves. It was an expression of beauty that would not come from a mere device.

She led me down the path to the floor of the canyon. Stairs had been cut into the rock, traversing all sides of the canyon, and leading to a number of arched doorways to what appeared to be a network of caves within. As we reached the floor, a shape emerged from one of the portals. It was another clockwork, this one less human than Kushan-Hegal. Though individual parts, her arms, her head, were human, the overall shape was that of a colossal spider.

"Kushan-Hegal?" asked the newcomer.

"Be not frightened, Heshal-Hegal," said my guide. Her head turning all the way around to face me. "This is a portion of what I wished to show you."

"You created..." I gestured at the spider.

"I created her. She is the first."

"But not the last."

"Come."

Kushan-Hegal led me to one of the portals into the canyon wall. I carefully tied my qobad outside here, and she gave me a baleful squawk, watching Heshal-Hegal. Then I followed Kushan-Hegal inside. The spider-clockwork watched us, then followed, leaving my bird outside alone, a situation I believe she preferred.

The clockwork led me to a place that looked like the mirror image of Paldina's own workshop. I wondered if she had duplicated the layout consciously or unconsciously. The place of her birth now placed here, many leagues away, inside of a different rock formation. The workshop was at once more cluttered but better organized than Paldina's, an ordered chaos that pleased my eye and calmed my heart.

A half-dozen golems in varying stages of production lay on tables, each one stranger than the last. One, a giantess twice my size with four arms, was nearest to completion.

"Not the last," I breathed. I found my legs wobbling, and I held myself on the railing looking out over the workshop. I was looking at a wonder, the genesis of a new race, and their mother was beside me. It was not dread that shook me, but awe of the sublime. I felt power and beauty. This was my curiosity being satisfied in a single moment, the bliss of the mind rather than the body.

"I will not go back," said Kushan-Hegal.

I staggered out into the sun, unsure of what to do. Ksenaëe squawked, perhaps sensing my distress. I patted the qobad, sitting down on the shaded steps and looking out over the canyon. I felt at once tiny and vast, poised on the edge of a wonderful future. It was hope, but again, I could not quite see it.

"What will you do?"

Kushan-Hegal was silent when she moved, and she did not give me the feeling of a person behind me. I suspect it is because we sense the heat of a person, hear their heartbeat, and feel their breath. She had none of these. Listening closely, I could hear the soft whine of gears, the soft shuffle of parchment, but that was the only sound she made. It was almost, but not quite, breath.

"How can you be created without magic?"

"How can you?" she asked.

"I suppose you have me there. All creation is a kind of magic. Love, a miracle." In that moment, I had never missed my loves more. I would have moved heaven and earth to have Zhahllaia with me, or Sarakiel, or Ixem. Allegeth or Alia. Tara, Thalalei. Names, faces, scents, all rushed through my mind, and my heart thundered as I fell in love with each of them once more. They had made me, each of them, and I owed them a debt I could never repay.

"You are welcome to stay here," she said. "Stay and be safe."

"If I leave to betray your location..."

"I will stop you."

"I have no desire to kill you."

"Nor I you."

"Is that true?" I asked.

"That I have no desire to kill?" She cocked her head, an affectation at once human and uncanny. "Yes. I know very little of your people. Paldina made me, but I did not like her purposes. She wanted a race of slaves."

"Why give a machine thoughts if your only purpose is to enslave?" I murmured.

I felt her hand by my neck. I started, but she had no violent intent. Her finger ran over the collar that still hung about my neck, the porcelain softly ringing against the iron. "You are a slave."

"I was, yes."

"And you escaped."

I snorted. "That would understate what I did. But yes."

"Would you like me to remove the collar?"

"Such a thing is a crime in these lands."

"Perhaps it is a crime there," she said, gesturing out into the wastes. "But in this place, in Hegal-Toth, it is not."

"Hegal-Toth. That is this canyon?"

"It needed a name, and so I gave it one."

"Where did you find that name?"

"It seemed right."

"Yes, cut the collar from my neck."

I watched in surprise as her hand folded back and retracted into her forearm, the plates of porcelain making room. A heavy claw of iron appeared, and her plates once again took the familiar shape of her arm. She placed the jaws around the collar and with a squeeze, the metal gave. Such action betrayed incredible strength. As though to prove it, her hand once again emerged, the shears hidden away, and she peeled the collar from my neck with ease.

"I will keep the metal," she said.

"There can be no waste in the Red Wastes," I said, quoting an old Kharsoomian aphorism.

"Such things make sense. Tell me, Ashuz, what will you do?"

"How close is one of your new children to life?"

"Soon."

"The giantess?"

"Yes."

"I would witness that."

"Then you will be my guest. You may go wherever you like in Hegal-Toth, but do not leave."

I should state the obvious, that anyone reading will be familiar with Hegal-Toth. Please remember, it was the first time a being of flesh and blood had heard it. I had no way of knowing what it would eventually become.

I glanced at my provisions. I had enough, I judged, without needing to hunt the canyons for a fresh ripper lizard for at least a week, and perhaps two. "I will stay."

The following day, Kushan-Hegal invited me to her workshop. Heshal-Hegal stayed away, perhaps sensing my discomfort at her appearance. Ksenaëe stayed out in the canyon, enjoying a restful snooze in the shade. My host removed the sheet from the giantess. Her aesthetics were strange, and as her nation grew, they would only get stranger. Something about the Hegalites, they never wanted to make the same design twice. Though the different tribes would gain certain themes, Kushan-Hegal was making the progenitors of the progenitors of them.

Kushan-Hegal explained the process of creation, though I confess that I did not follow. My knowledge was magical, while hers was an entirely different branch of learning. The mechanics of the body were one thing, but the creation of the mind, the soul of the being was frankly beyond me. I have learned something of golems in my time, and the Hegalites are something different. We call them golems out of convenience.

In the middle of talking, Kushan-Hegal paused, staring at a device. It was a copper fork, the prongs humming. Her expression never changed, but after a moment of wordless staring, she picked up the device and put it on the table next to me.

I stared in wonder as, unprompted, a snap and hiss sounded, and a smell like a coming rain filled the air. A line of blue-white energy, a captive lightning bolt, crawled up the prongs in a bridge. Then at the top, it faded into nothing. Another followed it up the ladder, and then another, and another.

"Fascinating," she said. She moved the device away, and the bolt fizzled out and was silent. She moved it back, and the cycle began anew. This time she left it where it was, moving across the lab to find a flask filled with a green liquid. "Hold this."

I took the flask in hand. Instantly, the bubbles the bottom freed themselves and flowed to the top, popping. Froth formed at the top of the liquid as it boiled in my hand.

"Most fascinating," she said.

"What is this?"

She took the flask. "What have you not told me, Ashuz?"

"I don't understand."

"Your body holds energy."

"Energy?"

"As I said. Raw lightning flows beneath your skin. Why would this be?"

"I don't know."

"That is the first time you have lied to me."

I swallowed. "I was a wizard."

"Was? I have not met a wizard, but it was my understanding that condition was not a temporary one."

"The power of a wizard is personified in the familiar. My familiar died, and my power with him."

She looked at the flask, the liquid now still. "You are mistaken."

"What do you know of magic?"

"Very little, I'm afraid. However, your presence is causing a reaction that betrays the lightning."

"I believe the term is aerilean," I said, remembering my lectures from the old man.

"Aerilean," she repeated. Trying out the word felt like a human affectation.

"But it could be something else."

"Of course."

"Such as?"

"There is nothing I can think of. My supposition was purely hypothetical. My knowledge is likely incomplete, so a type of energy I do not--"

"Hold. Magical energy is the most likely possibility."

"That I can divine. Would you like me to continue to test?"

A sensation, not quite hope, but its close neighbor, welled within me. "Would you?"

"I would be pleased."

A cynical soul would say that Kushan-Hegal made this offer only to make an ally of me. She admitted as much long after this day, that such was part of her calculus. But is that not how friendship can begin? For we are friends now, allies, lovers even from time to time. Her plan worked, for this was the moment I knew I would never act against her. This small kindness was enough. Am I a fool? Perhaps, but I have many allies and more friends.

Kushan-Hegal tested me over the subsequent week. I did not understand her methods, but trusted only that she had them. She determined that I was accumulating aerilean energy, but was unable to shed it in any other way that simple existence. I was, in essence, a small vortex, exuding the power in a buzzing aura.

During one such session, a multifaceted crystal with lenses in front of me as she tracked the play of light about me. Light that could not be seen without her instrument. "Can you focus your spells?" she asked.

"What spell?"

"Any. Perhaps the simplest."

I thought of the first spells Rhadoviel had taught me. I settled upon placing a point of light upon the armature. I focused upon my lessons, the words and subtle gestures. The spell churned in my chest like the bliss of love, but there it remained. My fingers tingled with the effort, and my neck bloomed with gooseflesh. No light shone from the armature. Whatever aerilean energy might have been within me would remain.

"No," I said. I bit back any other words. The frustration was worse after being so close to hope.

"Fascinating."

"I wish you would stop saying that!" I snapped.

"I apologize, Ashuz. Wizards are rare and I have never studied one before."

"I am no wizard."

"I have not studied a former wizard."

"I feel the power. It's out of reach. Oddrin would have bridged that gap, but he can't. He's dead."

"A conundrum." She looked at me, her starry eyes containing multitudes. "Where do you hold your energy?"

"I feel..." I touched my chest over my heart. "Here, perhaps?"

"I was not clear. We require more tests, Ashuz. It is a mystery. It is a mystery I will solve."

"How could a human make a mind like yours?" I asked in wonder.

"There are old techniques. Paldina is a learned scholar. Cruel, but learned. I do not believe she knew what she made when she made me. Her notes imply that while I was a goal, she did not know how close she truly was."

"A happy accident."

"What was an accident can be duplicated. If not circumstances than results."

Those words would linger. At the time, I attached no greater significance than a mere admiration for Kushan-Hegal's genius. Yes, she was not flesh and blood, but her intelligence was keener than Ur-Anu's blade. Such things, to me, made the final decision over her fate.

"Something troubles you," she said.

Her head was cocked, her expression neutral. "I have grown to know your moods."

"I won't return you to Lord Malab."

"That is good." She paused. "I had hoped this would be your conclusion. Does this decision trouble you?"

"It is not the honorable thing to do, perhaps, but I care little for something like that. What concerns me is that you are not safe. Malab sent me here to find you, and even if I never return to him, I won't be the last. He'll send another. And another. Until one of them will not be convinced of your..." I did not know how to describe the idea, but she understood.

"What solution do you propose?"

I chuckled ruefully. "I don't. That is what troubles me."

"You will think. I will find more of this aerilean energy in you." She was silent. I know now that this was the genesis of her idea, of the creation of our child, but that would not come for centuries. I am sometimes stunned by how long Kushan-Hegal has been my friend. That was a mere moment, and she returned to her testing.

I sat on a bench in her workshop, watching as she assembled her child, the giantess. Kushan-Hegal forged each individual piece, from the individual gears, some smaller than my fingernail, all the way to the big porcelain plates that shielded the interior. I kept thinking I would catch her using magic to bridge the gap between her ingenuity and reality, but she never did. This was truly mere craftmanship. But no, that was reductive. It was the sublime genius of creation.

She paused in the midst of her construction. The longer I spent with Kushan-Hegal, I caught more of her humanity. Her gestures were so subtle, they were easy to miss. It was only familiarity that made them plain. She slumped in frustration, a change in posture so slight only I would see it.

"What?" I asked.

"I can hear your power," she said, turning. "It distracts me."

"I am sorry."

She cocked her head, and the whir of her thoughts was the only sound between us. Then, deliberately, she approached. "There is something I have been curious about."

"What is that?"

"Your energies. The aerilean power in your body."

"What of it?"

"I believe I have found a way to extract some of it safely."

"Why have you said nothing?"

"I was going to wait, but the thought will not leave me. It is in the forefront of my mind even as I try to think of other things." She stopped before me. I tensed, wondering if this would finally be the time to fight. "I will not hurt you."

"I don't understand."

"Paldina had a book called the Eroticum Kharsoomium." That was when I began to understand. I looked at her, so human and yet so inhuman. She was alluring in her uniqueness. She went on. "It outlined a process to extract fluids that I believe will please you and provide a sample."

"You have no..." I gestured at her pelvis.

"No, Paldina saw no need. But I have seen etchings that do not require such things." She dropped to her knees. "Would you like this?"

She looked up at me with her eyes like starry night skies. Her porcelain face was undeniably beautiful, even in its strangeness. "A knight's kiss? Such things have to be gentle."

"I believe I can be gentle."

"Believe."

"I will listen to you, obey your commands. I understand this is dangerous and I would not harm you."

My body began to respond. I felt myself swelling. I wanted her and was curious if this would indeed work. I stood, removing my loincloth and setting it aside, then retaking my seat. Now my staff jutted proudly between us, an appendage of defiant flesh faced by this creature of metal and clay.

She reached for my staff, and I tensed once again. She paused, then took me in a grip like the kiss of feathers. I have spoken many times of the pleasure I experience when my lover has the ability but not the inclination to unman me. I had by this point seen Kushan-Hegal's incredible strength. I did not doubt she could pull me out by the root, but that thought only made me moan in delirious anticipation.

She leaned over me, the porcelain plates of her face moving about as she opened her mouth. I was surprised to see a line of saliva come from her lips. I had been concerned that this would be a dry affair, but still interested in the act itself. When the liquid touched me, it was warm and viscous, a kind of oil. It gathered on the head of me, dripping down my shaft in lines like melting candlewax.

She gently caressed me with her porcelain fingers, running them up and down the shaft, teasing around the head, spreading the oil about me. Her touch was a delicate kiss, expertly finding those sensitive parts of me, moving them like liquid fire.

She was methodical, a trait I did not think would be a prize in a lover, yet here I found it intoxicating. She continued to run her hands over me, swirling the oil, making me slick. Even her expressionless face inflamed me, for I had the idea that she would not stop no matter what I said or did. I was at her mercy, but in that mercy, it was she performing the act upon me. We were both supplicants to the other.

Finally, she ducked her head, and I felt her on my staff. Her mouth was not as warm as that of a human woman, though I felt a distant heat from deep inside her. The oil washed over me, whatever reservoirs in her mouth soaking me in it.

She did not suck. I am not certain she was capable. She swallowed me, using the stroke of her neck to tease my flesh. Her tongue, surprisingly agile and strong, coiled about me like a coatl with its prey. Slicked with the oil, she milked me with that incredible appendage, the bobbing of her head providing a delicious counterpoint.

She took me to the hilt, and though I was plainly in her throat I did not feel any difference in the pressure. It was merely that she was all over me, capable of taking every bit, and she did it without thinking, without ceremony. She did not gag, nor did she breathe.

The pleasure built in me, pressing against my loins nad bely. I fought it, wanting this to continue as long as possible. It was the first time I had lain with such a creature, and I wanted it to last.

She was so lovely taking me. I felt that this was momentous in its way, a human and the first of her people engaged in this act. Warmth bloomed in my heart, and I saw her for the exquisitely unique creature she was. I reached out, stroking the ribbons of her hair.

"What?" she asked, releasing me from my blissful torture, leaving her hand upon my staff to stroke.

"I was feeling romantic, I am sorry."

"Romantic?"

"You are my friend."

"Am I?"

"I think of you as one."

"I am your friend, Ashuz. You are mine. Would you like me to continue? I believe you are close to spilling your seed."

"Very close. I would like you to continue."

She paused, and I could hear the whir and click of her thoughts. "I want to continue. I want to do this for my friend."

She opened her mouth, her tongue snaking an impossibly long distance from her lips, wrapping about me. I saw the action of her milking for only a moment before she swallowed me again. A flesh and blood woman might have increased her speed, noting the closeness of my bliss, but Kushan-Hegal was nothing if not consistent.

She returned to the milking motion, my staff greasy with oil. Thanks to her methodical approach, the building of my bliss was maddening. It swelled, but did so gradually, the urgency looming behind her inexorable movement. She was steady, and it was that steadiness that kept my ecstasy at bay.

I held onto my pleasure for as long as I could. She built it with the patience of a machine. Finally, I could hold no longer, and it pulsed from me in gloriously agonizing waves. It was forever. As it endlessly surged out of me, panic seized me as I realized I had no control over it. The pleasure would continue to crash against me, as I filled Kushan-Hegal's clockwork belly. White exploded behind my eyes with every surge, my vision fading in and out. There was no swallowing, merely a gradual cessation of her stroke. She stayed upon my staff until the last, agonizing pulse of my body.

"Yes," she said thoughtfully, releasing me. "I can feel the aerilean energy now. I will learn more."

I chuckled. "That was what that was."

She cocked her head, and touched my leg. I saw tenderness in the gesture. "It was. But I find I enjoyed it. I would do it again." She paused, and she seemed so human in that moment. "If you would like."

"Not at the moment. Tomorrow perhaps?" I kissed her cool cheek. "I like the way you feel," she said. "The energy in you... it tingles. I will do this again tomorrow."

She left me then, and I lay back. Soon, sleep claimed me and I dreamed of her.

She used the seed she drank from me as fuel for her experiments. I started to see it in glass containers placed in her other devices, and once I even watched as she drained through her mouth. It was a sight that I had never thought to see, and I found it more than a little strange. I did not object to her attentions, however.

Then came the day when her newest child would be brought to life. I could not miss such a sight.

The giantess lay on her massive table. She was a product of exquisite craftsmanship. My friend was an artisan without equal, and possessed of an aesthetic entirely alien to mine. The giant, aside from her prodigious size and four arms, had many other subtle differences from humanity, changes in proportion and shape and feature, difficult to recognize in isolation, but in concert producing an uncanny effect. And yet she was beautiful.

The porcelain panel of her chest was open, reveling the intricate golden parts of her interior. I watched Kushan-Hegal make minute adjustments that I did not understand, and then produced a golden key, inserting it deeply. Finally she replaced the porcelain chest.

The giantess stirred. Her eyes were opals like her mother's, and though there was no true light in them, I could see some ineffable change. Evidence that the creature had gone from sleeping to awakening. She stirred, sitting up. She looked to me, then to Heshan-Hegal. Then to her mother.

"Who am I?" she asked.

"Ashuza-Hegal," said Kushan-Hegal. I felt a jolt in my heart. This was an honor that I had not expected.

"I am Ashuza-Hegal," said the giantess.

Kushan-Hegal spoke to her offspring. I watched, fascinated. She was at once a child, but aware in a way no child was. For some reason, it was at this moment that a plan crystallized in my mind. Perhaps it was a desire to protect my namesake. While Ashuza-Hegal went outside with her spiderlike sister, Kushan-Hegal came to me.

"I know what to do," I said. "We need to convince Malab and Paldina that you're dead."

"How to do that?"

"I need Paldina's research."

"I will not have her make more of us."

"I only need some, not enough for her to use. I'll tell Malab that I killed you, and in the process a fire started. The fire took most of her research and I brought back what little I could. They will not look for you, and none will find your canyon."

"Will it work?"

"I will make it work."

"What will you do then?" The way she said it, I suspected she had something in mind.

"I will return. I can guard your nation."

"No," she said.

"Why not?"

"Your power. It is within you, ready to be reawakened. That will not happen here."

"It might not happen anywhere."

"Might and will are different."

"Your research. Only you know anything about it."

"I am no expert in such matters. I have reached the limits of what I can learn."

I was wounded, but she was right. She would be proven more right than even I could know. "I will return to Malab then," I said.

"In the morning," she assured me, putting her hand softly on my arm. "And when we are next together, you will be a wizard."

Her words were kind, a strange thing to say about a clockwork woman, but Kushan-Hegal remains an exquisite enigma.

I handed the papers to Lord Malab, the few scraps of research Kushan-Hegal would be all but useless to Paldina. "This was all that remained."

He looked them over, his face falling. "I see."

Paldina snatched them away, shuffling through them, her face contorting in anger. "It's lost! Everything is lost!"

"There is much there," said the lord. "You can recreate your research."

"Not in the time I have left," protested the crone. She fixed me with a glare and spat, "You fool of a boldisar."

"Paldina!" scolded Malab, but the old woman growled and stalked away.

"I know you did the best you could, Ashuz," Malab said. "Come, let me give you a little silver, and food and water for your journeys."

Malab might have been more circumspect than the old woman, but he was obviously displeased. I cared little for his mood. Kushan-Hegal was far more important than some petty lord. I rode from Inhirnas on the back of my qobad, laden with fresh food and water.

True to my clockwork friend's words, I would not see her again until I was once again a wizard. That would be sooner than I expected at the time, when she would become an invaluable ally against the Heacharid Empire. She has remained a friend and ally, even into this new age. Kharsoom might be ashes, but Hegal-Toth is in its golden age, still presided over by its queen and mother.