The Broken God Machine (17 page)

“At the very least, Kissha would try to follow you,” Tasha said, and she
gave him a rueful smile. “She still thinks you’re going to be married
someday.”

“At this rate she may be right,” Pehr grumbled. “In another three years she
will be of age, and with my luck I’ll not have met a single other interested
woman.”

Tasha laughed a little. “Poor Pehr. You were supposed to be hunting boar and
making babies these past two years, and instead you’ve been stuck with the one
girl on the plains that has no wish to marry a strong, handsome hunter and bear
his children. I am sorry.”

Pehr waved it away. “We are not meant for that.”

“No.”

“Even if Kissha didn’t follow, she would at least tell your father. We must
go quietly and leave no trace.”

“My father will be able to track us no matter how careful we are.”

Pehr nodded. “Yes, but he won’t. If we get a head start, I think he’ll
understand that we are meant to do this alone.”

“Very well. It must be soon. I think … Pehr, I think we are running out of
time.”

“I can put together a cache of water and food in a few days’ time. I will
hide it out by the big jesuva tree to the west. We can go out on one of our
walks, like tonight – your family goes to sleep before we return, most often,
so they’ll think nothing of it. By the time they realize we’ve gone ...”

“We’ll be many miles away,” Tasha finished for him.

“Yes. I think we could put a great deal of distance behind us before the sun
rises.”

“Will we be able to carry enough food and water for the journey?”

“More than enough, I think. The pass is no more than twelve days’ journey
from here, and at its base there is the stream where we can refill our skins. I
might even be able to find us some food. When I escaped from the Lagos,
remember, I’d lost my weapons and my water skins, and did not know this land.
This time I’ll be prepared.”

“We will both be prepared,” Tasha reminded him. “You and I, together. All
right, Pehr?”

Pehr smiled at her and stretched, yawning. “Yes, together. For now I think
we should get as much sleep as we can. If you truly mean to rush, we’ll travel
deep into the nights, and I don't think there will be much sleep for us once we
get moving.”

“It is very necessary. There is … I don’t know how to explain it, Pehr, but
I understood it perfectly in my dream without it ever being said out loud.
There is something coming, a moment in time during which our actions may
stretch out to touch all those around us. My people, and yours, may depend on
us being there in time.”

Pehr considered this, wondering how she could be so sure of something so
indistinct. Finally, he realized that it didn’t matter; they had decided upon
their course of action. The hunter’s code, under which he had been brought up
his entire life, was to act upon a decision once made, not tarry over it.

“Very well,” he said. “In a few days, we will begin our journey. For now,
let’s go home.”

* * *

The tree was old – twisted and gnarled, thick-trunked and thick-limbed. It
had sat on its hill, casting its shadow upon the rippling grass of the plains,
for more than six centuries, and in that time countless rabbits had built their
warrens under its massive cluster of roots. Pehr had filled some of the older,
disused holes with provisions, and when he and Tasha arrived at last to collect
them, they found that only a few had been disturbed by the grassland creatures.
Pehr had expected this and stocked extra provisions for safety, and so they
found themselves with all the food and water that they could carry.

Beyond these supplies, Tasha and Pehr carried few other items. Pehr had his
club and knife, his bow, and a single quiver of twenty arrows. Tasha carried
the two tral pelts on which they would sleep and a bone knife of her own. Her
only other possession was her walking stick.

They set out on their journey just three hours after dusk and walked
steadily through the night. At dawn they stopped briefly and had a quick
breakfast of cold tral meat, then resumed their march. They were not pushing
themselves to excess, but Pehr knew that by the end of the day he and Tasha
would be exhausted. They pressed on regardless, wanting to put distance between
themselves and Samhad just in case the elder hunter had decided to follow them
after all. They walked in near silence, content to focus on the journey and the
physical effort of walking so many miles.

To pass the time, Pehr went over what he knew about the Lagos and their
metal god, forcing himself to revisit the gruesome details of Jace’s death and
the deaths of the children who had gone before him. Pehr couldn't think of any
reason why the metal thing hadn't taken him in the very same way that it had
taken every other creature that set foot within its deadly perimeter, save that
it had clearly seem something in him that it had found lacking in the others.
Had his running at the guardian caused this? Was there some other reason? What
had he done?

After some time, Pehr realized he was simply twisting the same images around
in his head, over and over, and gleaning nothing new from them. He decided that
the most simple case was also the most likely: in all probability, whatever had
saved him had been nothing of his own doing. Whether by the grace of the Gods
or by simple, stupid luck, it had decided to spare Pehr the fate it had doled
out to all the others.

Dusk fell, and Pehr could hear Tasha yawning behind him as they walked. He
was impressed with her stoicism; she hadn't complained or questioned when they
would stop, nor had she asked how far he thought they had come and how much was
left to go. Pehr supposed whatever sense of urgency it was that was driving her
prevented her from expressing any desire to stop for the night. He suspected
that he could walk along in front of her until she collapsed and Tasha would
not voice a single word of complaint. She wanted to be where they were headed,
and with plenty of time to determine what she needed to do there before they
reached the critical point in time that she was convinced was coming.

Pehr was right; two hours after sunset, it was he who called the march to a
halt. Tasha only looked at him with some bizarre combination of gratitude and
frustration.

“I hoped we would get further,” she said, and Pehr guessed that she would
have said the same even if they had spent the last eighteen hours at a dead
sprint. He said nothing, only shrugged and began clearing out a spot for the
fire. The plains were very dry in the summer, and he knew that any flame
carried danger, but the air could grow cold at night even now. Pehr wanted the
warmth and the chance to roast some of the unsalted meat he’d brought.

While he dug the hole, clearing a large swath of the surrounding area of any
grasses, Tasha wordlessly visited nearby jesuva trees and collected wood. The
branches would provide the base for the fire, while layers of green grass would
serve a dual purpose, creating smoke to keep insects away and preventing the
fire from flaring up and consuming its fuel too quickly.

“How do you feel?” Pehr asked her when the fire was kindled. They were
roasting the chunks of meat on skewers, and each also had a piece of the hard,
dense black bread that Tasha’s kin favored.

“I’m fine,” Tasha said, nibbling at her bread and looking at the roasting
meat with an expression close to greed.

“You look exhausted,” Pehr told her.

“So do you!” she shot back, and Pehr held his hands up in a gesture of
peace.

“That wasn’t an accusation,” he said, and he smiled. “It was only a
comment.”

Tasha’s angry expression faded. “Sorry, Pehr … I’m sorry. I thought you were
playing the big, strong hunter who never needs to sleep.”

“I’m looking forward to sleeping. I’ve been thinking about it for
hours.”

“Yes. I’m very tired. I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“No harm was done,” Pehr said, and neither spoke again until after they had
finished eating, when they were lying atop their tral hides and staring up at
the sky.

Pehr could feel himself drifting off when Tasha asked, “Are you
frightened?”

Pehr yawned, and asked, “Of what?”

“Of going back.”

“Yes.”

“What do you think we’ll find?”

“At the end of the path that I didn’t take? Tasha, I truly cannot guess.
Mountains, probably … stones, snow … maybe more things made of metal. More
guardians.”

“I think there must be something more than that.”

Pehr considered this, and after a moment he nodded. “The guardians wouldn’t
be there to watch over stones and snow.”

“Exactly.”

“Whatever we find, Tasha, I wouldn’t expect it to be miraculous … at least
not in any good way.” The metal thing was miraculous, of course, but Pehr would
have had difficulty finding anything good about it beyond the fact that it had
spared his life for no apparent reason.

“Whatever we find will be old and mostly dead,” Tasha agreed, and Pehr could
tell from the sound of her voice that she was near sleep.

“You’ve seen it in the dreams?”

“I … I think so.”

“So you know what to expect?”

“No. It’s not like that. I don’t understand everything in the dreams. Much
is hidden, and much more is in plain sight but impossible to understand.”

Pehr thought about his own dreams, where so much was clear and yet there
were still such gaping holes of comprehension. He told Tasha that he understood
what she meant, and the girl made a murmur of acceptance. After that, there was
only the buzzing of crickets and the rush of the wind through the grass. Tasha
was asleep.

Pehr thought of Samhad and wondered how far the hunter had come before
understanding that his daughter and his surrogate son didn’t mean to be caught.
Did he think they’d eloped? No, surely not … the man himself had intimated that
he would give a union between the two his blessing at the first sign that they
wished it. Surely he understood what this was, that his daughter had finally
done the thing she’d been preparing to do all her life. Surely he knew that
she’d gone to the mountains, where her people were forbidden to go.

Those who went to the mountains did not come back. Tasha had told him that,
and Pehr wondered whether they would prove any different than all the others.
He was still pondering this question when sleep took him.

When they came at last to the band of trees that separated the plains from
the near-impenetrable cliffs of the mountain range, Tasha lost herself to
emotion for the first time since Pehr had met her.

The suddenness and force by which she was overcome took him by surprise; one
moment they were walking underneath the trees and the next they’d passed
through the edge and were met with the sight of the mountains rising before
them, and Tasha was doubled over, sobbing. Pehr stopped, turned, and covered
the ten yards between them in a few running strides, placing his hand on her
shoulder.

“What is it?” he asked, but after a second more he realized he understood.
When Tasha was able to speak, she confirmed it.

“I have spent my whole life waiting for this moment,” she croaked in between
harsh gasps for air.

Pehr had never seen someone weep like this. The tears poured from her eyes
in a torrent, her cheeks stained an angry red, her legs barely able to support
her. He guided Tasha down to her knees and sat beside her. She put her hands
over her face, trying to gain control but not yet able to do so.

“There’s no shame in being afraid,” Pehr said, and Tasha shook her head.

“I am not afraid,” she said through her fingers. “Oh, Pehr, I’m not afraid,
it’s just … the mountains have called to me since I was little more than a
baby, and now I am here at last.”

Pehr understood how she felt, in a way; he had spent the first sixteen years
of his life studying for, training for, and dreaming of the hunter’s Test. He
still felt that he’d been cheated, that it’d been stolen from him by the
Lagos’s untimely interruption, and because of that he could not rightly be
called a man, even now.

“I worry that whatever we find, it will not live up to your expectations,”
he said after a time. Tasha’s sobs had become sniffles, and she had uncovered
her face, but she would not raise her eyes to meet his.

“I do not think either of us could possibly know what to expect,” she
said.

Pehr took her hand and squeezed it. When she at last raised her eyes to meet
his, he smiled. “It will probably be terrible. Shall we go and see?”

The corners of Tasha’s mouth twitched in what Pehr thought was as close as
she could come to a smile for the moment. She nodded, and he helped her return
to her feet.

“There’s a stream to the south,” he said. “We should refill the skins before
we go. It shouldn’t take long … we’ve still got plenty of food, so we don’t
need to worry about hunting.”

Tasha looked at him for a long time. Then she nodded and said, “You are a
good man, Khada’Pehr.”

Pehr sighed and shook his head. “Someone … someone else that I cared about
told me that once. I told her that I was not a man, and I tell you the
same.”

“Nani.”

“Yes.”

Tasha shook her head. “You were wrong. I think you were wrong even then, and
I’ve no doubt you are wrong now. You are a man, Pehr, and a good one. She saw
it in you, and I do, too.”

Pehr shrugged, embarrassed by this praise. “I want to go home, Tasha. I want
to see my cousin again and help return our village to prosperity. I never
should have left. Now? I'm only doing what I must.”

Tasha shook her head and turned south, toward the stream, not looking back
at him. “Much more than that.”

When they came to the stream, they drank from the cold, clear water and
filled their skins. Tasha took the opportunity to wash her face, cleansing
herself of the tears that had dried, sticky, on her cheeks. Looking more like
the cool, composed girl he had always known, she said she was ready, and they
made their way back to the path into the mountains.

“I think the climb will take an hour or more,” Pehr told her. “It’s not a
difficult slope, but it is long and winding, and there are points where piles
of rock sit unstable on the ground. I lost my footing twice on the way
down.”

“I will be careful,” Tasha said.

“I would have you walk ahead of me, just the same, at least until we reach
the intersection. If you fall, there’s a chance I can keep you from suffering
any major injury.”

Tasha looked vaguely annoyed but didn’t argue. Instead she asked, “Will we
go to see your guardian?”

Pehr bit his lip and shook his head. There would be a time to contemplate
that course of action, but he was not yet ready. “Whatever it is you’re looking
for, it lies along the other path, not in the circle of bone.”

He gestured for her to go on, and Tasha nodded, making her way into the
split between the jagged rock walls. She proved nimble footed on the slow climb
up the path, slipping only once and catching herself before Pehr had any need
to intervene. The going grew steadily easier as they went, with fewer stones
and pebbles littering the ground, and the path began to level out somewhere
near an hour into the journey.

At last they reached the split in the path. To the right, it wound away
further into the mountains where Pehr had never been. To the left, around the
curve, lay the metal thing’s domain. Tasha stopped at this point, staring up
the path that lead further into the mountains as if, by doing so, she could see
through solid stone to what lay at its end. Pehr found that he could barely
look at the branch that led to the circle of bone, knowing the thing that had
killed Jace and so many others stood less than twenty yards from where they
were now.

“Some part of me hoped never to return here,” he said.

Tasha turned to look at him and then glanced down the path that led to the
circle of bone. “Bad memories,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You did all for him that you could.”

Pehr couldn’t meet her gaze. “I will lead from here. The ground is solid,
and—”

“And I am a woman, and must be protected,” Tasha finished for him, a hint of
both humor and distaste in her voice.

Pehr knew she was at least half joking, but he found himself unable to
contain a sudden swell of anger at her words. This girl had never been here
before and didn’t know or understand the power and danger of just a single
guardian. If there were more ahead, Pehr had no doubt that they would be up to
the task of killing Tasha. Should they react to his presence as the one in the
circle of bones had, it might well save her life, and he appreciated that fact
even if she did not. He glared at the girl, brow furrowed.

“I would seek to protect you even were you a man twice my age, a killer of
hundreds of men and thousands of tral. I have seen what’s here in real life,
not in dreams, and if I can keep the things which guard this place from killing
you, I would do so.”

“Oh, Pehr, don’t …” Tasha seemed embarrassed and unsure how to respond to
this. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I am merely nervous.”

This was something Pehr could understand, and he felt his anger ebbing away,
a sense of foolishness taking its place. After all this time, to become
irritated by something so simple seemed suddenly ridiculous to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m nervous, too. This journey seems as if it’s
tightened up every muscle and sinew inside of me. It’s the same for both of us,
I think.”

“It is, but I want you to understand … I do not fear death here. You
shouldn’t worry about me, Pehr.”

Pehr couldn't have taken this advice even if he’d wanted to, and so he
merely shrugged and said, “Let’s see what there is at the end of this
path.”

They made their way through the canyon with relative ease. The ground was
only a very gradual slope, largely free from debris. This far up, the mountains
were made mostly of some hard, grey rock that was flecked with white spots and
seemed to wear away instead of chipping or crumbling. There was no vegetation
to be seen other than a few small mosses and the lichen that clung to the
stone. Deep gullies had been carved into the places where the path met the
stone, worn there by water running its course over countless centuries.

Pehr had just convinced himself that the metal thing below was the only
guardian to be found when he rounded a corner and stopped short, confronted by
something that at first he mistook for a man. Rapidly he understood that this
was not a person but rather some version of the thing that guarded the circle
of bone, much better preserved but still in a state of hideous decay.

The thing’s skin – if it could be called that – was sagging in places, torn
in others, and coated in slimy green mold. If once it had worn clothing, the
fabric had long since rotted away. Pehr saw that it was man-shaped, but without
nipples or sex organs. In the center of its chest was a large, black circle,
perhaps a cap of some sort. Its eyelids, nose and lips had been eaten away,
giving it the grotesque, grinning visage of a half-rotted corpse. Where the
eyelids should have been there were plates of metal covering the thing’s deadly
eyes.

Pehr cried out for Tasha to stop and stay behind cover, knowing even as he
did so that the warning would come too late. Tasha’s strides had taken her into
the thing’s line of vision and, just as the first guardian had done, this
version jerked to life. It cried something in a language that Pehr did not
know, throwing its arms wide, and Pehr had to fight back a moment of violent
nausea as the substance clinging to those limbs sloughed off and fell to the
ground with a wet plopping noise. There were no muscles exposed by the thing’s
sudden loss of skin, only a series of tan sacks bulging with greenish fluid and
an uncountable number of whirring discs and plunging cylinders.

Pehr spun, hoping to shove Tasha back behind the outcropping of rock, only
to realize that, like its brother down below, this guardian had paused. It
cocked its head to one side, clearly studying Pehr despite its covered eyes,
and after a moment it spoke again. This time there could be no doubt of its
words, for once again Pehr found himself being addressed in something very
close to his own language.

“DNA match confirmed. Welcome to Havenmont, Prime Minister Mombutabwe! Is
this your guest?”

Pehr glanced toward Tasha, who was staring at the guardian with wide eyes.
She nodded emphatically, and Pehr turned back to the metal thing. “Yes, she is
my guest.”

“Excellent! I am called Ardis. I am tasked with dispensing information and
upholding security. In these trying times, we must be careful not to let
enemies cross our borders. May I ask you your name, ma’am?”

After a moment, Tasha said, “I … I am called Tasha, daughter of Samhad.”

“Welcome to Havenmont, Tasha Samhad. I cannot place your accent. Do you come
from the New Phoenix bunker?”

“I … no, I’m sorry,” Tasha said.

“A pilgrim, then? Please enter and be well!”

“This is a guardian?” Tasha asked Pehr, but the thing answered her before he
could.

“I am tasked with dispensing information and upholding security. In these
trying times—”

“How do you know me?” Pehr interrupted, and the thing turned its attention
back to him.

“Prime Minister, your DNA and that of Professor Montgomery is hard-wired
into all Mark Fours as a full-clearance security match.”

“I don’t understand anything this damned thing is saying,” Pehr muttered.
“What in the world is DNA?”

“Deoxyribonucleic acid – DNA is a nucleic acid containing the genetic
instructions by which all known living entities are assembled. The main …” The
thing began reading off by rote a great set of information that, to Pehr, might
as well have been spoken in the foreign language it had used earlier.

“Pehr, make it stop!” Tasha hissed.

“I … you, thing, uh … damn your eyes, what was your name? Ardis! Ardis,
please stop.”

The guardian – Ardis – ceased speaking immediately and looked at him
expectantly.

“What lies at the end of this pass?” Tasha asked it.

“Why, this pass leads to Havenmont, the last city of man! Surely you’ve
heard of Havenmont, Miss Samhad.”

“I … well, of course, Ardis,” Tasha said, and she fell silent. Pehr looked
back at her again, and Tasha shook her head, sighing. They were equipped with
so little information that it was impossible to ask meaningful questions or
parse the answers that the guardian was giving them.

“What now?” Pehr asked her.

“We should go on,” Tasha replied. “I need to see the city.”

“Just two hundred more feet,” Ardis broke in, “and you shall see the
greatest work of man since before the Great Destruction.”

Pehr felt a nasty shock run through his body at these words. To hear
something that was a legend to both him and Tasha referenced as casual fact by
this strange thing was an unexpected and unpleasant surprise.

“Yes,” he growled. “Thank you, Ardis. I think you can go back to your post
now. Will we meet any more guards on the path?”

“Not until you reach the city proper, Mister Prime Minister.”

“Will they trouble us?”

“Not at all! You and your guest are most welcome here.”

“I see. Thank you, Ardis.”

“It has been my utmost pleasure, sir,” Ardis told them, and without further
comment it leaned back against the canyon wall and returned to its inactive
state. Pehr turned to Tasha, who was unable to hide a small smile.

“What in the name of the Gods is a Prime Minister?” Pehr asked her, and
Tasha’s grin widened.

“What in the name of your gods is a Mombutabwe?” she asked back, and Pehr
laughed.

“Two hundred more feet,” he said. “Perhaps then we will find out.”

* * *

Neither Pehr nor Tasha had ever seen a city or had any real understanding of
what one was, and so when at last they came to the edge of the path and beheld
the vista spread wide before them, neither could at first find words to express
what they were feeling. It was Tasha who finally spoke.

“It’s so sad …”

In the valley below them, secreted away between the mountain peaks, stood
the ruins of something so vast and intricate that even in utter decay it was
one of the most beautiful sights Pehr had ever laid eyes on. Towers of metal
and stone rose from the ground and seemed to stretch up to touch the heavens
themselves. Some had fallen over the course of the preceding millennia, and
others now leaned at drunken angles, barely supporting their own weight. Most
of the windows were empty, but at the tallest tips of some structures there
glinted a material Pehr didn’t know that glowed like brightly polished metal
under the falling sun’s rays.