Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 394
There was no silence under the black mountain, no respite from the din of industry. Towering vaults were filled with the ringing of piston hammers and the thrum of geothermal generators. Magno-coils throbbed as they drew magma from the planet's core and magnetic sieves whirred as they sorted essential minerals from the dross. Red-robed adepts droned Binaric liturgies as they wafted silver thuribles, seeking to appease restless Machine Spirits. Less audible but equally constant was the grumbling of the Squats, quietly mocking their so-called allies behind their backs. All was noise, and tension in the darkness beneath the world.
Uneasy was the alliance between Rotundus and Tech-Priests. Both breeds valued technology but wildly diverged on their attitude towards it. The scions of Mars treated knowledge as holy, and all that came from it divine. They prostrated before the mysteries of science and logic, revering circuit and data-wafer as if sacred. The Leagues of Votann held that to be sheer idiocy, technology was there to be used, not prayed to, machines were treated as bosom comrades, working side by side with their operators, neither more important than the other. One faction treated machines as friends, the other as angels, but both were united by a crushing need to see Cawl's ambitions made real.
Wulfe was given reason to remember that as he dealt with crisis in the dark. Far below the main workshops there were mine workings, vast tunnels that stretched for kilometres. Expanded to store their materials and tools, so nothing of the base would have to remain on the surface, where prying eyes could see. The expansion had been swift, the work completed by tireless workers, only the digging hadn't stopped when it was supposed to.
At the far end of a tunnel a team of Ironkin laboured, swinging pickaxes into the dark stone. Piston limbs moved ceaselessly, tearing the rockface apart, while other units dragged the rubble away. Wulfe had needed to climb over piles of scree to reach the digging, since nobody was taking the detritus away. He felt the weight of stone overhead ominously bearing down, nervously eyeing the lack of support struts along the wall. This tunnel was unsound, it was unauthorised, and yet the Ironkin would not stop digging.
"Ye will quit it!" Wulfe snapped.
"Must. Dig." a flat mechanical timbre retorted.
"Ye be undermining the supports above, this whole place will come down!"
"Dig. Must. Dig. Work. Incomplete." the voice recited.
"Listen to me ye bucket a' bolts, if ye continue you'll bury yourselves and bring down half the mountain!"
"Dig. Dig. Dig." a jarring repetition of the same word.
A deep sigh at Wulfe's side as a figure in Exo-armour pushed him aside. Wulfe gave way, letting the Rotundus pass. His armour was covered by a long leather coat and his forehead bore goggles with multiple lenses set over each other. His beard was wild and scorched by electrical discharges and his breath stank of blackroot. This was Skardar and Wulfe did not oppose his interference, one did not argue with a Brokhyr Ironmaster when it came to matters of the Machine.
"Cease ye prattling and return to assigned positions!" Skardar snapped around a wad of blackroot he was chewing.
"Work. Units. Assigned. Digging." the Ironkin stated.
"I'm bloody well reassigning ye!" Skardar spat.
"Reassignment. Requires. Authorisation."
"By the Ancestor Cores, I be a Brokhyr! I be all the authorisation you'll ever need!"
The Ironkin's golden dome glistened in the flickering light as it pondered this, then said, "Authorisation. Rejected."
Skardar and Wulfe shared a loaded look, then the Ironmaster reached under his coat and pulled out an icon. Complex formula was inscribed upon the surface and he brandished it as he cried, "K'heazer Jutran Doth! K'alak Naar Rotundus! Votann Iek F'astan!" The dolts of the Mechanicus would have called this a sacred talisman and a ritual chant, it was not. Merely a precoded command phrase and memno-triggers, programmed into the Ironkin's cogitator units. The effect was the same though, the Ironkin stopped moving, limbs going still as their internal power sources were deactivated.
Wulfe shuddered at the sight. Ironkin were Votann, though writ in metal form, they came from the same Crucibles as the Cloneskein. They were Kin, as much part of the Leagues as any being of flesh and blood, to see them treated so was like watching family members being dosed with sleeping gas. It had to be done though, for their own good, and only a Brokhyr could compel them so.
"Blood of the Ancestors, it's getting worse," Wulfe grumbled.
"Another team lost to degeneration, the Ironkin grew fewer by the day," Skardar spat.
"Can anything be done for the wee bairns?" Wulfe probed.
"I'll take 'em back to the Forge again and try to hammer out the bugs in their cogitators, but I cannae do that forever," Skardar groaned.
"Try, we have ta try," Wulfe urged, "I'll be off to tell Therguld."
Wulfe turned his back on the still Ironkin, marching along the tunnel. The way was tight but his footing was sure, he swiftly reached the end of the mineworking and returned to the proper tunnels. The walls were broader here, the air cleaner and stark bulbs provided illumination for him to pass, not that he needed it. Wulfe's Cloneskien provided superior night vision, he could see by the tiniest spark in an otherwise pitch-black room.
Wulfe marched to an open-framed cage and pulled a lattice door across. A yank of a lever saw him ascend through a hole in the roof, pulled aloft on thick cables. Textures in the rockface flashed past, the history of this world written in layers of rock. Wulfe ignored it, uninterested in this bleak planet's past. The future was what mattered.
Soon he reached his destination and yanked the lever to halt the lift. He stepped out into a corridor nearly identical to the mines far below, save for the metal hatches fitted to the walls. He marched straight to a blank door and stepped inside without knocking, slamming the hatch closed behind him. Inside was the abode of a lord, the walls bedecked with Inwit furs and the corners overtaken by banners of the Votann. Caskets stood proud, carved of Tanith Nalwood, filled with rare treasures, and chairs thick with Tallarn lizard-hide. Bounty claimed from across the galaxy, bought or otherwise acquired on many an adventure. This one room contained enough wealth to buy a small moon, and it belonged to the Kahl of the Kinhost.
Therguld glanced up, a fuming pipe clenched between his teeth, as he groaned, "Come on in then."
"I need a drink, a strong one," Wulfe grunted as he reached into a casket and pulled out a flask.
"Who said ye could touch that?!" Ramdoth snapped from another chair.
"If ye seen what I seen, you'd know better than to argue with a Rotundus in need," Wulfe retorted as he threw himself into another chair.
Therguld didn't speak immediately, instead drawing acrid smoke into his lungs and exhaling. Wulfe hated the stench produced, far more potent than any iho-blend humans inhaled. Therguld wasn't bothered however, his Cloneskien was bred for survival in toxic environments, his lungs could handle far more noxious atmospheres than other Rotundus. Ramdoth on the other hand resembled a golem. Out of his armour the Einhyr looked to have skin made from stone, his epidermis toughened by strange genic-strands woven into his very being. His Cloneskien was forged for hardship, the best miner and warrior traits instilled into him. He was bred for battle, and loved his role, good job too because for anything else he was useless.
Neither spoke as Wulfe opened the flask and gulped down a swig of the contents. The brew was fiery, it clawed the back of his throat and made him want to cough. He didn't though, he was no weakling. Still it boiled in his gut, adding fire to his belly. It was welcome, after what he'd seen the cold hand of dread was upon him.
Finally he lowered his flask and declared, "We lost another bunch of Ironkin."
"How many?" Therguld probed.
"Dozen or so, Skardar's trying to salvage whatever he can."
"We can't lose them!" Ramdoth spat as he thumped his chair, "They're kin!"
"We know that ye dolt," Wulfe spat, "We cannae do anything about it though."
"Then I'll go beat some sense into Skardar!"
"Ye do nothing without my sayso," Therguld hissed.
Ramdoth settled down but Wulfe sighed, "The losses be mounting. The Ironkin are nearly lost to us. The Cloneskiens can't be far behind."
"Surely it can't be that bad," Ramdoth protested.
"It's getting' worse by the day," Therguld sighed, "The Votannic Council sends word that the Ancestor Cores have forgotten another Cloneskein. The crucibles produce fewer types of Rotundus each year. At this rate our League will go extinct in another century."
Wulfe grimaced in frustration, Therguld's Kinhost hailed from the same League as he did, and shared the same doom. The Balor-Attal Conglomerate, once one of the mightiest Leagues among Votann, now tottering on the brink as their Ancestor Cores failed. Mighty super-cogitators, repositories of science, history, wisdom and knowledge. Contained within were designs for everything one could imagine, weapons and ships and even genetic strands for the Rotundus themselves. What the Mechanicus in its ignorance called Standard Template Construct archives, the Votann's most closely held secret.
Every League was built around a series of Ancestor Cores, depending on them for guidance, technology and fresh bodies. The Ancestor Cores ran the Crucibles that bred the Cloneskien, and the Ironkin with them. Central to the Rotundus way of life, a central pillar of their being, without them there would be no Leagues of Votann. This was a problem though, tens of thousands of years of continuous operation had left them enfeebled and slow, questions took decades to be answered and Crucibles ran at diminished capacity. All Leagues suffered, but none more so than the Balor-Attal Conglomerate, whose Ancestor Cores grew more erratic with every passing year. If a solution was not found soon, then it was the end for Wulfe's people.
Therguld took the pipe from his mouth, "Ye reckon Cawl's idiots can unlock the secret?"
"They be dolts, but it's all we got to work with," Wulfe sighed.
"Are we truly trusting that Quagmire Cawl?" Ramdoth hissed.
"No choice, the Neo-Cadmus may be our last chance to understand the ancestor's lore, if they can make a thinking machine then it may reveal a means to cure our ails."
Ramdoth shook his head, "The ancient humans were enemies, the sagas tell us so. The Hegemony, the League of Nine, the Golden Fields, all came against us. They sent their Men of Iron and their Soulbound against us once, now we seek to bring them back from the grave. If we tinker about with such filth we could well end up a with a world-burner hanging in our skies again. I say this is a bad idea!"
"It's all we've got!" Wulfe snapped, "If we don't learn the secrets of a Machine Mind then our Ancestor Cores will degenerate to nothing. We've tried every good option; all we've got left are the bad ones."
"Like an outcast would know," Ramdoth spat.
"Ye call me an outcast again and your face will have a we accident with me Graviton hammer. I was right where the Votannic Council put me, alone in the stars. A Kinhost of one."
Therguld agreed, "It's a desperate plan, but we gonna have to try it."
Ramdoth threw up his hands, "Then why can't we get the answer from the Ironkin?!"
"I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that," Therguld growled.
"They'll all machines, basically the same!"
"They're not the same!" Wulfe shouted slamming his flask down to spill droplets high, "Ironkin are Votann, born from the same crucibles we be. They come from the Ancestor Cores, same as us. The ancient machine minds are not like Ironkin, not at all. They were wild and unbound, recklessly powerful. They did not know of the hearth or the four pillars, they were not Kin! These Neo-Cadmus are feeble copies, but the root technology is the same as runs in the Ancestor Cores. If we can figure out how they work, we can fix our own problems and save our Holds!"
Therguld nodded, "He's right, he's ugly, but he's right. The Balor-Attal Conglomerate needs the cog-worshippers to finish what they started. Our Kinhost, all Kinhosts of our League, need this done. The Votannic Council has appointed me to the task, and I will not fail. I swore an oath to save our League."
That was the end of the debate, for an oath was a mighty thing among Rotundus. Their word once given was unbreakable, not to be set aside on a whim. Therguld had sworn to uncover the secrets of Silica Animus, and so he would. Wulfe too would help the Neo-Cadmus rise, but his reasons were far more personal. He had sworn an oath of his own, compelled by a debt he could repay no other way. For this reason above all he would see the project completed, though his doubts were ever-present. Everything Ramdoth had said, Wulfe had thought of already, every word played out in the quiet hours of the night. Caught in a vice Wulfe did the only thing he could, he tipped the flask back and drained it dry, trying to smother his misgivings in booze.