Edge of Destiny

HEADS OF THE MILITARY

Eir stepped back from carving another huge basalt head. It showed Snaff's face-the quirky rumple of his brow mirrored below in a slight smirking lip, the wide and happy eyes, the long nose, and those ears like milkweed pods.

"How do I look?" Snaff asked, posing nearby.

Pacing across the stone chips that littered the floor of Snaff's laboratory, Eir said, "You look good."

"Good?" Snaff said dejectedly. "Not dashing?"

"I've never seen you dash…"

"How about brave?"

"Sure," Eir said as she brushed rock dust from her hands. "Brave."

Snaff waddled up beside her and stared at his likeness. A smile crept onto his face, and he said, "Brave."

"Well, that does it for the second head," Eir said. "What about the body?"

"Oh! Zojja's been working hard on my design," Snaff said enthusiastically. He grasped the norn's hand and led her over to a short drafting table covered with sketches. All showed a spherical cage with a leather harness suspended within. "The cage is for protection, of course, like your rib cage, because inside it is where the driver will be suspended. These straps will hold the person secure within the center of the cage, with side straps to stabilize in case the golem falls over."

"Ouch," Eir said.

Snaff nodded. "Yes, and you see that there's plenty of clearance for flailing arms and legs."

"Show me how far we are."

Snaff led Eir to the worktables that held the metal golems. From the belly of Big Zojja, a blinding light flashed, and acrid smoke whiffed into the air. The light ceased, and Zojja's head popped from the opening, her hair slightly singed. She set smoking hands on the golem fuselage.

"Have you been welding by hand again?" Snaff asked.

"It's fastest," Zojja said dismissively. "But I've got to make sure my eyes are shut."

"How are the cockpits coming?" Snaff went on.

"Nearly done. Both are welded to the frame. Then you can hang your rigs."

"Ingenious," Eir marveled.

Zojja huffed. "Only if you trust metal over magic."

"Eir," Snaff interrupted, "I don't think I've shown you the laurels…"

"Wait," Eir said, staring at Zojja. "What did you say?"

"I said I don't know why the two of you are putting more trust in golems than in magic."

"They're magic golems," Snaff volunteered with a weak smile.

Eir waved him off. "No, wait. This isn't about magic or metal. This is about Zojja disagreeing with the plan."

Zojja nodded tightly. "Exactly."

Eir folded her arms over her chest. "So you don't think your master's designs are good enough?"

Zojja's eyes flared. "Of course they are!"

"So you don't think your welds are good enough?"

"My welds are rock solid!"

"So you don't think my plans are good enough."

Zojja pointed at her. "There you go."

Eir nodded. "Well, your reservations are noted, but the plan goes ahead."

"Then we're all going to get killed."

Eir laughed angrily, shaking her head. "No, we won't. I promise you, we will kill the Dragonspawn, and every one of us will walk out of there alive."

Zojja cocked her hips. "If I die, it'll be too late to say I told you so."

Eir towered above the asura. "Your master is a kind man. You could have much worse. In fact, every asura I have encountered would make a much worse master."

"Thank you very much," Snaff said. "And now, about the laurels-"

"But he has one fault," Eir continued, never looking away from Zojja. "He lets you pretend you are the master."

"That's because he recognizes that I am a genius," Zojja said archly.

Eir shook her head. "You work with a genius, and yet you disdain everything he does. He treats you with respect, and you act as if he is your enemy. One day, you will be without him, and then you will see who the true genius is."

Zojja rolled her eyes. "Nice speech."

Eir clenched her hands, gritted her teeth, and turned away.

Snaff smiled and blinked placidly. "Let me show you these wonderful laurels." He retrieved a pair of golden torcs from a nearby table and brought them over. Powerstones in red, yellow, purple, and green gleamed in settings of gold. "Beautiful, aren't they? The stones are selected to map to the activation zones of our minds."

The word minds cast a pall over Eir's face. "Yes. Minds. There's the flaw in my plan." She glanced over her shoulder, then looked back down at Snaff. "The Dragonspawn takes over minds. He corrupts them. His power infuses them, tempts them. He turns those who want to kill him into those who want to serve him. These machines are no good unless we can block his mind powers."

Snaff grinned like a boy who had studied well for a test. "He can't. That's why I've placed these here," he said, tapping a powerstone embedded in the shoulder piece of Big Zojja. "The gray stones repel mind auras. Out here on the shoulders, they'll create a field that will block the Dragonspawn's mind. He can't reach us, and he can't take over our golems."

Eir slapped Snaff on the back, a move that shuffled him a few steps forward. "You are a genius. But could you put some gray stones in a necklace for me and a collar for Garm?"

"Of course," Snaff replied offhandedly, but then said, "You know, nobody else has this technology. Everybody else is making golems without heads!"

Eir feigned shock. "No!"

Snaff nodded deeply. "Their golems fumble around, while mine combine the genius of an asura with the power of a titan! Nobody can do this stuff!"

"They all think he's cracked," Zojja explained flatly as she jumped down from the belly of her golem. "I agree. Sometimes."

Eir laughed ruefully. "So, is everything ready?"

"Everything except the head of my golem," Snaff said. "You can put that into place while I get your gray-stone necklace and collar made. Then we'll have a meal and a rest, and tomorrow-"

"We march on the Dragonspawn."

She headed back toward the worktables, lifted the huge head of Big Snaff, and slid it into position atop his metalwork body. When the stone base contacted the metal frame, loops of steel rose to engage the stone shoulders and clamp down tightly. Then Eir had only to set a powerstone in the head of the creature. It fused with the basalt, sinking in and rooting.

Big Snaff sat up.

Eir set the other powerstone, and Big Zojja rose, too.

Garm and Eir stood between those towering creatures. Snaff and Zojja wandered over to join them. They stared in wonder at what they had wrought.

"There is a certain sick calm before battle," Eir said. "The panic of the heart that something has been left undone, that we are not ready for this." She looked at the two asura, only rising waist high, and at her wolf, who rose only to her ribs. "We are ready."

Snaff clapped his hands once and then rubbed them eagerly. "Then let's feast."

A pig turned on a spit within the laboratory's ironwork forge, and among the coals below, potatoes nestled in chain-mail sleeves. Wild onions and butter-soaked leeks simmered in iron skillets. Cornflower cakes rose on the hearth, and little pitchers of honey and gravy warmed there, as well.

The four warriors lined up along the hearth and loaded pewter plates with this bounty. Then they gathered around the great stone table where Big Zojja had been built. Even Garm had a place. Though their plates were heaped with smoked pork and caramelized onions and leeks and cornflower cakes, they sat in silence, unsure what to say.

At last, Eir spoke. "Spirit of Wolf," she breathed, her voice husky in the hot jungle air. "Spirit of Bear and Snow Leopard and Raven, we eat this meal tonight in preparation for war tomorrow. We fight not just for the norn but for you, for all races. Be with us. Help us prevail against the Dragonspawn."

With those words, the spell of regret over them all was shattered. They ate and talked and laughed but did not speak of what the dawn might bring. • • • The first red glow of sunrise filtered through the skylight of Snaff's laboratory and shone across his two massive golems: a twenty-foot-tall Snaff and an eighteen-foot-tall Zojja. Both stood with their cockpit hatches open, ready for their drivers to climb in.

"Well, my dear," Snaff said, "let's take them for a spin."

Zojja gave a rare smile and clambered up the leg of her golem, into the cockpit.

Snaff climbed up as well, pulling the cockpit hatch closed behind him. He stepped into the spherical cage and strapped himself into the leather harness. Leaning toward a speaking tube, he shouted, "Can you hear me?" His voice rang through the metal.

A tinny reply came: "Yes."

"Make sure you fit the straps securely. We're going to get jostled. And make sure your laurel is tightly in place."

"Yes, Father," Zojja said sarcastically.

Snaff slid the laurel onto his head. The jewels on the gold band glowed to life, and the metal affixed to Snaff's skull. He blinked as his eyes lost focus in the cockpit. They regained focus above, staring through the red pupils of the golem. "I can see! Through the golem's eyes! Well-hello down there, my norn friend!"

Servos whined, and Big Snaff's giant hand waved beside his giant head.

Eir waved back a little sheepishly.

"It's spooky to be so big."

"Yeah, spooky," Zojja replied in a metallic voice.

"All right! Gang's all here," Eir said as Garm loped up beside her. "Let's get this attack going." She led the way, striding up the stone steps that led from the laboratory. Garm followed at her heels, and behind him came the two Bigs.

Rata Sum had never seen such an odd procession. The norn warrior Eir Stegalkin marched down the side of the ziggurat, followed by her dire wolf, Garm, who was taller than two asura stacked. Behind came two asura who were taller than five-the wide-eyed Big Snaff and the intense, young Big Zojja.

They climbed toward the city center, the switchback stairs shaking with their footfalls.

That morning, even the geniuses who loved to sleep in rolled out of their beds to gape at the procession.

Master Klab, for one, staggered up from within his workshop and stood beside his ruined puffball, which was unceremoniously lashed to a stone curb. He blinked in annoyance at the mechanical parade, saving a particularly deep scowl for "Master" Snaff. "Bit of rubbish," Klab snarled, though he couldn't quite turn away from those strange stony heads, those carefully engineered trusses, those expertly aligned welds. Yes, Klab had recently been saved by that very golem, looking so much like Snaff's own apprentice, but no genius wants to be beholden. Zojja showed how beholden he really was-and how much of a genius Snaff really was.

"I hope you fall off the city!"

But the band navigated the bridges safely on their march to the center of town, heading for a particular asura gate.

Eir and Garm strode through, feeling the membrane of magic snap around them. The sultry air of Rata Sum gave way to the biting cold of Hoelbrak.

Of course, the asura gate had not been constructed with twenty-foot golems in mind, so Big Snaff had to crouch and nearly crawl to get through. The air rippled around him as he passed. "I hope the Dragonspawn has a bigger door."

"If he doesn't, you can make one," Zojja replied as she shuffled through behind him.

Then they were all in Hoelbrak, standing on a cobbled way between tents and rough-hewn lodges. The bodies of the Bigs pinged and crackled as the metal contracted from cold. Standing at their full height, the golems could peer over the thatched rooftops, past the defensive bridges that ringed the settlement, and out to snow-covered tundra and ice-choked mountains.

"Out there is where the Dragonspawn is," Zojja said grimly.

"Not much longer," Snaff assured.

As the group marched down the lane, walls shuddered, thatch shivered, and norn came running out in all states of undress, bellowing and bearing weapons.

"What's happening?"

"Earthquake?"

"Invasion?"

"For the love of Wolf-!"

"We're being attacked!"

"Stop!" shouted Eir, lifting her hands to the crowd. "You are not being attacked. These magnificent creatures are fashioned to battle the Dragonspawn."

A susurrus of shock moved through the crowd, and someone shouted, "Golems can't do the work of norn warriors!"

"I am a norn warrior," Eir said, "and I am doing this work. But let me ask you this-what becomes of norn who go to battle the Dragonspawn?"

The crowd sighed in frustration, and a nearby woman said, "The men return… as frozen icebrood. The women return… not at all."

"Exactly. But we are warded by powerstone magic that will block his aura." She tapped the gray stones that shone from the epaulets of her armor. "And these warriors of steel and stone cannot be corrupted by the Dragonspawn's power. With these provisions, Garm and I and our metal allies will reach the inner sanctum of the Dragonspawn.

"And we will tear him apart."