The Mechanical Crown

Automation

"Not seen one of those before," Tranton said.

They moved cautiously around the rim of the room, observing the sphere from all sides. Multiple passages led away from the chamber in all directions. The sphere itself was a giant, uneven marble, its surface rugged and roughly textured with panelling and strange, angled patterns rather than having a smooth surface. The cobalt light glowed from within, seeping out wherever there was a gap in the panels, as if something was trying to escape from its shell.

Tarn was beside him, as they moved around the chamber, trying to discern the sphere's purpose. "It's building towards something," the boy said, his face etched with concern. "We think she might be trying to recreate the conditions that led to the first conflation."

Raising his eyebrows, Tranton turned towards him. "The conflation? We? You all there, Tarn?"

The boy looked at him and smiled wanly, shrugging as if to say there was nothing to worry about - even while they were deep underground, in the very depths of their arch enemy's lair. "Sorry," he said, weakly, "sometimes I think I can still hear Aer'as voice in my head." He forced a smile again, his eyes lingering for a little too long, before he averted his gaze.

Tranton continued to look at Tarn, filled with an uneasiness that was probably inevitable, given the circumstances. There was no possible version of their current scenario with which he would be at ease; they had all fallen through a mirror into another world, like the story books he used to read to her, in those hopeful first years. Reaching Lagonia had been to tumble into a work of fiction more outlandish and unlikely than anything he'd ever found in the Hollanhead library, or heard around the campfires across the Windfast Gap. Normality seemed more distant with each passing hour. Something was bothering the boy, distracting him, pulling him away from the moment. His mind was elsewhere, or in two places at once, and Tranton didn't have the faintest notion of how to help him.

"The way the machines are aligned and connected," Tarn continued, "resembles something from one of Aera's oldest memories. I don't really understand what it all means, but this sphere is where everything comes together."

"Well, then," Tranton said, activating his hilt, "why didn't you say sooner?" The blade extended and he approached the nearest thick pipe, extending out from a tunnel and angling up at forty-five degrees to intersect with the sphere. "What do you think?"

Tarn held his hands up and shrugged. "Worth a try?"

At that moment the sphere pulsated, the blue glow intensified and a low thrum reverberated through the chamber. The dust on the ground shivered, lifted off the ground momentarily, then re-settled. Particles drifted down from the chamber's ceiling, and a rumbling echo cried out from each of the tunnels.

Holding his sword upright, Tranton turned in a slow circle. "What was that?"

The pipes and winding cables creaked and heaved and the sphere's glow intensified further, the light now spreading out with startling rapidity, a shimmering opalescence encasing first the sphere and then all of the connecting mechanics and structures. The shimmering, oily energy covered every artificial surface in the chamber and spread into the tunnels beyond, illuminating them with a soft, caressing light. A steady, intense, whining noise filled his ears.

Looking over at Tarn, Tranton hefted his weapon and cocked his head.

"Do it!" Tarn shouted.

Pivoting the blade in his hands, turning it over so that he could wield it with the end pointing down, Tranton plunged it towards the pipe.

Instead of cutting into the pipe's surface, his blade instead slid across the shifting energy pattern, and he lost his footing as the sword struck the dusty ground. Regaining his balance, he tried again but to no avail. The glowing sheath around the pipe appeared to be protecting it. Looking up at the huge, throbbing sphere, Tranton shifted his weight to his back foot, then flung the sword at it, the weapon spinning end-over-end under its blade impact with the shell. It bounced harmlessly, first sliding down the sides then falling to the floor, where the blade retracted back into the hilt.

Retrieving it, Tranton looked up grimly at the web of glowing strands emanating out of the sphere. "Well, that didn't work," he muttered.

Tarn was holding up a hand, shielding his eyes. "There's an energy field around the sphere, and all of the connecting structures," he said. "Somehow I can see it - it's getting stronger, more intense."

Clapping a hand onto Tarn's shoulder and squeezing it affectionately, Tranton leaned in. "We can all see it, kid. But keep us updated on any changes."

Kirya ran over, followed by a couple of the Bruckin soldiers. "Now what?" she said, speaking loudly above the increasing noise of the great machine.

"We don't even know what it does," Tranton said. "Does anybody have any ideas?"

"Pienya said something about the tunnels," Kirya said, moving up and down the walkway, her frantic movements mirroring Tranton's internal attempts to wrestle with their situation. "She said Kraisa wanted to go somewhere. That the machine rooms and the tunnels were all connected."

"Excuse me," said one of the soldiers. "I have no idea what's happening down here, but we've been complaining about your mining operations for years. We've had sinkholes all around Bruckin because you've been digging too much, too deep."

Tranton couldn't help but smile at the young soldier's accidentally divisive language. He glanced at Kirya, who was clearly making some effort to ignore it.

"I think it's a door," Tarn said, his eyes narrowed and distant. He kept glancing to once side, as if he could see something they could not. "Or, perhaps not a door, but a connection of some kind. She's done it before - that's how they all came here in the first place. And now she's trying to go back?"

"Back where?" Tranton asked.

"I don't know," he said. "Where they came from? Her, Aera, the others. We read about some of them in the museum in Aviar."

"This is probably the only possible situation in which I wish Eris were here. He'd probably be able to explain it."

"I'm not so sure," Kirya said, "I never got the impression that Aera told her people the whole truth. So now what? Apparently we can't destroy the machine itself. What are our options?"

There was a noise from one of the tunnels, then; a low, murmuring, discordant mumbling, as if from the lips of a drunk man - or, to be more accurate, an entire group of inebriated men. Then the noise could be heard coming from another tunnel, on the opposite side of the chamber. They were being approached from multiple angles.

"Our options," Tranton said, "as always, are terrible."

Tarn pressed a hand to his forehead. "She knows we're here."