The Promise of the Child

Part 6 (updated daily, glossary included)

Corphuso watched the Amaranthine as she touched the machine's edges, running a finger almost tenderly along the coils that made up its outer lobes. She hesitated, her ancient mind lost for a minute in some distant reverie, and tapped the structure with her finger, as if trying to gauge the exact blend of the fine amalgam of alloys from which it was made. The tap of her finger produced no sound, the architect noticed, and was pleased.

The flotilla would be underway, he knew, sailing up the fjord and into the canals that led to the fortress's surf lands. From what they could hear, deep in the base of the under-chasm, the attack had lost momentum, perhaps – Corphuso dared to hope – already totally intercepted at the serving levels. The mighty citadel of Nilmuth hadn't been breached in five hundred and seventy years, despite centuries of sporadic civil war across Drolgins. Now a freeVulgar mercenary army from Untmouth protected the fortress at all times, stationed in the vastness of its broad foundations, and a fleet of destroyers – a gift from their secretive allies the Zelioceti – kept watch over the port. Only brute force had gained the Lacaille access today, but they hadn't enough time to reach the treasure they were digging for. Corphuso smiled nervously as he watched the Immortal examining the Shell, wondering again just what he had made, and how it would change things forever.

'Are you pleased with it, Amaranthine?' he asked, observing how little she appeared to notice the distant rumbles of conflict in the levels above them.

Voss looked up at him, her hand remaining on the structure it had taken him twenty-four years to build. She was dressed in the exquisite finery the Immortals always wore whenever he saw them, priceless jewels dripping from every cuff and piccadill. 'I think it is a marvel, Corphuso. A blessing, but also a curse.'

He looked at the glimmering machine. 'I expect, as ever, the blessing shall be yours, the curse ours.'

She smiled, the expression so rare on her pretty face that he couldn't help but instantly smile back. 'You shall be a Prince of the Firmament now, Corphuso – you can leave the cursed behind at last.'

The architect sat down, glancing briefly at the Vulgar soldiers standing to either side of the doors. They were wizened, ill-looking things, their skin shiny and liver-spotted in the glow of the fire. If they had heard what she said, they made no sign. It was true – he wanted to leave the Investiture, but he had never told a soul. The Prism worlds were places of pestilence and fear, where the short-lived suffered and scavenged and fought. His successes had left him far wealthier than most, his large family married into the courts of Moonkings and Princelings across the Prism Investiture, but he was now bound to the counts of Nilmuth as they fought over his invention themselves, and all but a prisoner in the fortress. His dearest and yet most secret wish had always been to leave all this filth and terror behind with enough money and influence to be granted a place among the Immortals in their Firmament, and perhaps – were there any hope of such a thing – to become an Amaranthine himself.

'I am bound by duty to my kingdom, and by its loyalty to the Firmament, Amaranthine,' he said carefully, glancing again at the soldiers. 'It is not for me to decide my fate, nor would I wish to.'

The Amaranthine looked into his eyes, the smile lingering at the edges of her mouth. He wondered how many liars she had known over her long, long life, and how many she had seen shamed.

'Quite so, Corphuso,' she replied at last.

He took up a heavy book awkwardly, leafing through the dense Vulgar print to the engraved pictures, noticing from the corner of his eye how she still looked at him. He was waist-high to the Amaranthine, nothing but a dwarf in her eyes, but some deep Vulgar sense of pride always allowed him to forget his small stature. Gradually he became aware that the sounds in the fortress had changed, almost disappeared, while at the same time deep, resonating grumbles were seeping through the thick walls from the lands outside. The soldiers looked at each other, then at the architect.