CIRCUIT LOG 02/09/1911 17:47:03
LIEUTENANT GENERAL RAVEN: Attention, officers. Presentation is at 18:00 hours. Are preparations complete?
COLONEL ALLEN HOWARD: Preparations were completed three weeks ago. We're always on
stand-by.
RAVEN: Watch your mouth, Howard. Are you interested in a transfer to the Ishvallan Filtration
Center?
HOWARD: No, sir. My apologies.
RAVEN: You have 12 minutes until stations. It is imperative that this presentation goes flawlessly. I recommend we use this time for performance tests.
UNKNOWN: (laughter)
RAVEN: Is something funny, Colonel?
HOWARD: No, sir. Those are my men. I apologize for their behavior.
RAVEN: Get your men in line. I am considering if you would be of more use in the desert.
HOWARD: Yes, sir. Places, everyone! We're doing a data transfer!
XXX
The Bringer was coming.
The air smelled of roasted meat and burnt sugar from the food stalls ringing the square.
It made him nauseous.
The dais, carved from marble and lined with gold leaf, flashed yellow whenever the lights from lampposts and electric torches passed over it.
He'd heard it was meant to look like the clouds of the sky guiding the faithful to Heaven.
In the darkness, it looked like flickering tongues of hell flames tasting the air of the world above.
He could tell the faithful from the faithless at a glance: the unmoved, almost bored stare at the night-encased stairs versus the bright eyes shining with reverence at where a golden sun painted on the wall of the dais, heralding the place where their beloved Bringer would appear.
For once, he found himself feeling more contempt towards the believers.
The arms of the clock tower pointed out ten minutes to six.
Ten minutes until the Bringer appeared.
XXX
CIRCUIT LOG 02/09/1911 17:51:14
HOWARD: Damn, another loss. You don't think he's telling them where to move?
MAJOR THEODORE WEBSTER: You really think he would tell you if he was?
HOWARD: It's not like he can lie. Besides, we're still in testing. Send this over to transcription.
TRANSCRIPTION: X CENTER TOP X CENTER CENTER X CENTER RIGHT
TRANSLATION: O LEFT TOP O LEFT CENTER O LEFT BOTTOM
HOWARD: You've got to be (redacted), you guys were doing half-and-half!
COLONEL ADDIE DORSEY: Why stab with a knife when you can shoot with a gun?
HOWARD: Because it's cheating!
RAVEN: You have 5 minutes. The High Commander has ordered you to take your posts. Do this immediately and I will consider not informing the High Commander of your habit of using the Conduit for children's games.
HOWARD: Yes, sir. You heard that, Dorsey?
DORSEY: I don't know what you're talking about. I just enter the information, you're the one who reads it. Tell General Raven we're ready.
XXX
The inlets and grooves in the marble were more than just decoration.
They were meant to represent the Bringer's veins, his blood delivering the essence of God to the people, making him the bridge between Earth and Heaven.
They did far more than represent.
The tendrils of shadow bleeding into the tiny roads were thinner than a wire, but that was all they had to be. The elaborately carved circles, stamping the place where the Bringer would stand, filled with wires, so that the alchemical symbols were inked in a black that was darker than night.
Selim heard the soft slap of his father's bare feet on the stone floor and braced himself. He didn't particularly enjoy this responsibility, but just like the more soft-hearted technicians, he knew his place.
The Bringer did not so much as glance at his son as he passed the square alcove that had been cut just for him.
The Bringer stepped into the setting sun and the humans cried out - in awe, in fear, in reverence, as they should, as was their place. The Bringer stepped onto the circles and Selim and his father joined through the touch. Selim savored the feeling of his father's confidence, his righteousness, his bracing knowing that this was as it should be, the humans looking up as they looked down.
Selim stretched himself in the other direction filled in the spaces of the translation circuit.
He flinched every time the circuitry was complete.
XXX
CIRCUIT LOG 02/09/1911 17:59:24
HOWARD: Translation is active. Transcription ready?
DORSEY: Scheme is prepared. Stand by.
HOWARD: Stand by.
RAVEN: Activate scheme on my signal. Stand by.
XXX
The Bringer did not shiver in the crisp winter air, despite that he was naked save for a thin white robe.
The man did not shiver, either. He was used to the cold of desert nights.
The crowd's breath curled in the air as they called out, some making generic exclamations, some calling out greetings or hails in the hope that their precious Bringer or High Commander or whatever they called him looked their way.
Some stayed rebelliously silent. The man was one of them.
The Bringer raised his arms, the voluminous sleeves of his robe falling down his sides in waterfalls of silk. The people quietened, hissing at their neighbors to close their mouths and focus their minds.
The Bringer did not move or speak for a few seconds, seemingly reveling in this moment of adoration, fearful or otherwise.
His voice was like rolls of thunder echoing from the clouds.
"Dear People. My People.'
I know that terrible voices have been speaking terrible words. I know this as I know all things. These words are terrible because they are lies. These voices are terrible because they are the voices of liars. I bring myself to you, as you have brought yourselves to me, for you know the truth as well as I.'
"I have brought you the truth, as I bring you light and warmth in the cold dark of winter. I have brought you peace, as I bring you order and stability in this broken, chaotic world. I have brought you sovereignty, as I brought God from his Throne and bound Him to the land, the People, He forsook.
"You are free. You are unbound. For I have brought the Light and the Truth to you."
"We are free. We are unbound."
The man gritted his teeth at the love and hope in the voices of some. He soothed himself with the resentment and caution in others.
The Bringer brought his hands forward, cradling empty space with his arms.
"Behold. As I banish the darkness with light, I banish lies with truth."
The empty space in front of the Bringer's chest flickered, a gold bolt of lightning flashing like a spark from flint, and then the night disappeared and the man's skin writhed in shock as the winter nip suddenly became an unbearable scorch.
XXX
CIRCUIT LOG 02/09/1911 18:02:07
TRANSCRIPTION: 4 HYDOGEN - 2 HELIUM 4.3 -12 POWER CONT.
RAVEN: Hold for 60 seconds.
DORSEY: Holding.
XXX
It was too bright to look at, yet no one could look away.
Some called out in awe. Others cried out in fear. Some simply grunted and closed their eyes.
The man did this out of reflex. The light came through the skin of his eyelids reddened by blood.
His people's blood, spilled in the name of this creature, and only he could see it.
XXX
CIRCUIT LOG 02/09/1911 18:03:03
RAVEN: Withdraw in 3.
DORSEY: Stand by for withdrawal.
HOWARD: Stand by.
XXX
It was like he dissolved.
One second, Selim was there, in the shadows, his father at one end, the translator at the other.
Then he was pulled, thinned out until he was no more than the thinnest thread, and wrapped around the world like he was being fastened into some sort of cosmic toy for the amusement of a god's child.
He was still there - he was more there than he had been when he was solid. He'd been contained and then he'd been spilled and he'd spread out to fill in any empty space.
It was probably supposed to feel glorious, being everywhere, knowing everything.
He wondered if this was what a Philosopher's Stone was like from the inside.
XXX
CIRCUIT LOG 02/09/1911 18:03:05
RAVEN: Orders to withdraw.
DORSEY: Withdrawing.
HOWARD: Stand by.
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP
DORSEY: Scheme's withdrawn.
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP
HOWARD: Transcription, you've withdrawn, correct?
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP
DORSEY: Affirmative, translation. You're receiving an echo.
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP
HOWARD: Should we redact it from the log?
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP
WEBSTER: I don't think we should. High Command wants to analyze any echoes or after-effects. Says they're annoying and want to figure out how to stop them.
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP
HOWARD: (laughter) Affirmative. We want you to stop.
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP STOP STOP
RAVEN: What the (redacted) is going on over there?
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
WEBSTER: (redacted), this isn't an echo! We've been tapped! Disconnect! Disconnect now!
TRANSCRIPTION: STOP STOP STOP NO NO NO STOP NO STOP
XXX
The small sun vanished with a whoosh of air and a pop of pressure.
Darkness and silence as full as death.
Then the people spoke.
"Praise the Bringer!"
"Hail the High Commander!"
"Free the Conduit!"
He almost missed the shout, there were so many other voices piling on top of one another.
"Free the Conduit!"
"Blasphemer! The true God cannot be contained!"
The shouts were getting louder, the praises and hails falling back as the crowd realized who was here, what was happening - and what was about to happen.
"Free the Conduit! Free them!"
The man wasn't acting when his eyes sun-blinded eyes scanned the crowd, searching for the naysayers, the dissidents who were brave enough, stupid enough, to denounce the Bringer in his presence.
"False incarnate! Liar! The true God cannot be contained!"
The people started crying out in fear again, but not of the Bringer's demonstration of strength.
They feared the Bringer's wrath and for anyone who fell in its path.
XXX
The first thing he felt when he came back to himself was fury.
Not his own fury.
His brother saw them with his Ultimate Eye.
A mere brush of age-weathered fingers gave him his brother's anger at the blatant disrespect. A second gave him a location, a name, and a face.
Selim smiled and his shadows smiled with him. This display had gone well, up until the ending. Perhaps Father would reward them.
Perhaps they would get some new toys to play with.
XXX
They loved the look on their faces when they caught them.
One second, they had their hands cupped around their mouths, smiling dumbly as they reveled in what they thought was some great heroic deed.
The next, they saw them, realized who and what they were, and then they were screaming for a different reason as they grabbed them, their consolidated weight stronger than any muscle as they dragged them, kicking and spitting defiance while their eyes betrayed their terror, towards the dais.
Towards the Bringer.
They dragged them up the steps by their throats, their knees bruising on the marble, and threw them, choking, at the feet of their father. Before they could stand, they slammed their hands into the backs of their heads, cracking their skulls on the stone and forcing them to kneel.
Father studied them, his expression bored.
"You wish to see the vessel of God?"
His voice was deep and low, quiet enough that only the two humans groveling before him could hear him and imperious enough to make each of them shiver below his child's grip.
The first man sneered, his teeth chattering as he bared them.
"They're a person. You can't own a person."
The second man stared ahead, his eyes bright with holy fervor.
"The true God cannot be bound by any form. Whatever abomination you have in your possession is a farce."
Father tilted his head to the side. In the moment of silence the humans did not feel the the thought the Bringer sent to his children.
The next moment, the men devolved into struggling and choked shouts of defiance as the Bringer's child picked them up by their throats and carried them across the dais, passed the painted sun, and into the darkness where their brother stood hidden in his alcove.
Their eyes met and they grinned at each other.
Today was a good day indeed.
XXX
STOP STOP NO NO NO STOP PLEASE STOP
XXX
The man was not as foolish as the others.
He didn't make his presence known as he pressed himself to the wall, letting the shadows and the panic hide him as he made his way towards the corner of the dais's curved wall where the Bringer's son had disappeared with the dissidents.
He saw the corridor, perfectly blended into the shaded niche where the dome met the lip of the square's wall. He'd assumed that the protruding ends of the cement wall had been an aesthetic choice or perhaps simple laziness on the architect's part. Now he could see he was meant to assume that so that he wouldn't find what was hidden out in the open.
The man berated himself in his mind. He ought to know better, what with how well he knew the Bringer and his Emissaries.
He would not go down the corridor, but he would use it guide him as he made his own path to the heart of the fortress.
To the Vessel of God.
XXX
They were thrown onto the carpet, as red as blood and as soft as the freshest velvet.
This was a sacred room, but not in the way that either of the humans had imagined.
The men stared through the glass, at the stark white marble walls on the other side, at the symbols carved into the stone, the papers covered in lines of ink and metal tables holding instruments with needles and gauges and tubing.
They saw the Conduit.
They saw the Vessel of God.
XXX
PLEASE
XXX
"What… what did you… what have you done?!"
The other man simply stared, his horror too great for words.
"Behold," the Emissary said in a voice that was a mockery of their father's. "The Vessel of God. Or the Conduit, if you ain't a believer."
The man who had denounced the Bringer in the name of God stood swayingly, too appalled by what he saw through the glass to notice that the Emissary had let him, and staggered to the glass, pressing himself against it as if he could faze through it and reach what he saw beyond it.
The man who had denounced the Bringer in the name of morality had closed his eyes, the corners of his face pinching with force.
The Emissary gave themself a full minute to savor their disgust, their despair. The next part was a lot more fun, but that didn't mean they didn't enjoy the entire process.
"All right, time to move on."
The man with the closed eyes opened his and stared at the Emissary in terrified confusion. The Emissary stared back, smiling softly as if the man was a small child offering them a wildflower.
"You should know. It's a citizen's responsibility to know the law." Their soft smile split into a hungry grin full of teeth. "Everyone who sees the Conduit has to meet them."
XXX
NO
XXX
CIRCUIT LOG 02/09/1911 18:49:52
TRANSCRIPTION AUTHORIZED BY 4TH HIGHEST EMISSARY
TRANSCRIPT: GOD IS NOT HERE. YOU STAND IN AN EMPTY BOX. YOU SHALL NOT HAVE ABSOLUTION. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT YOUR OWN SIN.
XXX
The glass was broken.
The man who had denounced the Bringer in the name of morality had thrown himself into it with the force of a full run. The panel had shattered and the man lay on the carpeted floor in the adjoining room, rolling the shards into his body and screaming.
The man who had denounced the Bringer in the name of God had wrapped his arms around the Translator, lying on top of him on the metal table as he whispered meaningless words of comfort.
Not even he knew if the words were for him or the Translator.
The Emissary frowned. The one rolling in broken glass was providing a good deal of entertainment, but the other was proving to be quite boring.
Oh, well. They could fix that.
XXX
CIRCUIT LOG 02/09/1911 19:02:05
TRANSCRIPTION AUTHORIZED BY 4TH HIGHEST EMISSARY
TRANSCRIPTION: WATER 35L CARBON 20KG AMMONIA 4L LIME 1.5 KG PHOSPHOROUS 800G SALT 250G SALTPETER 100G SULFUR 80G FLUORINE 7.5G IRON 5G SILICON 3G GOLD 0.000007G RUTHENIUM 0.0000000004G TECHNETIUM 0.00000002G COPERNICIUM 0.000000001G HASSIUM 0.000000G STOP
XXX
It was always so thrilling to watch them melt.
The research technicians always complained about the mess, though not to the Emissary's face. They knew better than that.
Besides, it wasn't as if they actually had to clean anything. Their brother was more than happy to deal with anything that needed disposing of.
He had licked the Translator clean, as well as the marble floor and walls around him. Now that the liquified flesh was gone, he was looking at the punctured, paled body on the carpet, slivers of glass surrounding it like the petals of funerary flowers.
"Can I please eat it?"
The Fourth Highest Emissary smiled at their brother in true sympathy and gave him a comforting pat on the head.
"The humans need an example."
The brother pouted, miming the explosion as he made his point.
"Sploosh was example!"
The Fourth Highest laughed and poked their brother's round belly.
"An example they can see. So one not in your stomach."
The brother whined but obeyed, following his sibling out of the carpeted room and away from the Conduit.
"Come on. Let's go find a defective chimera for you to eat."
XXX
He waited until the clock rang a quarter to midnight.
Even accustomed as he was to cold nights, it felt like spears of ice were being stabbed into his bones. As foreboding as his impending task was, he was grateful for the protection from the elements it promised.
He stepped into the corridor, not to go down it but to use its cover to create his own. The wall came apart with a blast of fizzing, chunks of marble, and blue light. He waited, as he always did, in case someone uninvolved had seen or heard something. When he heard no shouting nor saw any running, he stepped into the hole he'd made and raised his hand in front of him.
The marble split apart for him, the hole deepening and lengthening as he walked.
In little time the marble became concrete. In more time, he knew it would become linoleum and steel.
And then the Conduit.
XXX
SORRY BROTHER I COULDN'T STOP
STOP
STOP
XXX
The metal blew outward with an alchemical punch.
The marble was sleek and smooth white - a layperson might think it was simply for decoration, but anyone else would know the choice was just as much for convenience.
It was much easier to clean blood from smooth stone than pockmarked cement.
The lights were expectedly out - the alchemists who worked here had long since gone home for the day and any guards that were present were monitoring the entrance from the corridor.
They also wouldn't dare step foot in the laboratory, not if they had any idea of what happened here.
He nearly jumped when he saw the statue.
Not the form set into the carved indent in the wall, lines and symbols etched into the stone leading away like rivers branching out of a lake.
It was the steel armor that gave him pause.
It seemed out of place, amid the runes and the tables and instruments, as if whoever had put it there had been trying to get it out of the way and then had forgotten to come back for it. He stared it into the holes where the wearer would look through, searching for a flash of eyes or a twitch in the helmet. When he saw neither, he became confident it was empty and lost interest in it.
He didn't care what they got up to. The only thing that mattered was that it ended tonight.
The two rooms were separated by what looked like a vault - it was large and metal and controlled with a hefty wheel that was locked in place by a crimp in the wheel's axel.
It was almost funny.
The door came apart with the scream of steel and the rattle of falling gears.
There was no way the guards wouldn't have heard that, but it didn't matter. By the time they worked up the courage to enter this forbidden room, his work would be done. There probably wasn't anything they could do to stop him, anyway.
He stepped into the room and realized he was wrong.
XXX
Someone was here.
Someone who wasn't supposed to be.
It was always disorienting, going from everything to nothing. But he was used to it. He gave himself a moment to adjust, then turned the helmet so he could watch the stranger tear the door apart like it was made of paper and then step over the mess.
He watched the stranger stiffen.
Maybe, now that the stranger had seen what was here, he would leave. Maybe he would realize that this was something better off left alone and go home.
The stranger went slack, his shoulders drooping as if suddenly tired, then took another, less eager step forward.
In the creak and pop from the settling metal, he did not hear the armor's clanking footsteps.
XXX
"By Ishvallah's steady earth… what have they done to you, little one?"
He had heard the whispers, the theories that the Conduit, the Vessel of God, was a person.
Some said they were an alchemist who was paid in a life of luxury for what they did, what they were. Others, such as the foolish revolutionist, believed they were being held against their will.
But this…
No one had predicted this.
He forced himself to approach it - them - he couldn't tell if they were a girl or a boy. If they were aware he was there, they made no sign of it.
"This is what alchemy is capable of? It truly is the art of devils."
The small, bony chest rose and fell, as deeply and evenly as if they were sleeping.
He hated how much easier what he had come to do had become, now that he knew what, exactly, he had to do. Returning the lost to Ishvallah was never easy, but in this instance, it was almost reassuring, to know that he was ending such terrible suffering.
The Conduit would never see another sunrise, but this way, they would never have to feel another pain as well.
He reached out his tattooed hand, holding it over the Conduit's gaunt face. They seemed to sense him then, or decided to acknowledge that they sensed him, because they opened their eyes slightly, squinting at the palm of his hand as if it was glowing too brightly to look at.
The eyes were a beaten yellow, like gold that had been smelted in a filthy furnace.
He waited for a cry of fear, a gasp, or at least a glance in his direction. He wished they would make some sort of noise. This silence was worse than any terrified scream.
"It's all right, little one. You will be free. I will set you free."
He lowered his palm to their face, cupping their chin and caressing their jaw with his thumb. They closed their eyes at his touch, sighing a heavy, exhausted sigh as if his touch had cast a sleeping spell.
The true spell would grant a rest deeper than sleep.
"Be with God. Be at peace."
XXX
He felt the moment of contact.
He didn't feel it in his body - his body was full of something else, there wasn't room for him. It was like he was a pool and the stranger had dipped their toes into him, testing the warmth.
Then the bottom of the pool reached up through the water, grabbed the stranger, and dragged him beneath, the water running down his throat and filling his lungs before he had a chance to take a breath.
He couldn't stop it.
They could never stop it.
XXX
"So the courier of the bringer of life has come to take it back. Has your God run out of supplies? Or is this one unsatisfactory in some way?"
He had felt the moment of contact.
Something like venom was streaming through his hand, beneath his skin and into his blood and soaking into his bones. It took everything in him to turn. He didn't have nearly enough to pull his hand away.
There was another.
This one was thin, but thicker than simple skin and bones. The hair was longer and brighter and the flesh was less gray, but they had marks printed over their body, not the same as the other but similar enough that he could tell they had something to do with each other.
He realized this other one was naked and before he could think better of it, he had glanced to the triangle below the navel and and above the thighs.
A boy.
"Congratulations. You know your anatomy. I'm impressed, considering you spend every waking moment separating your mind from your body."
"Who are you?"
The question sounded empty, but the boy seemed to taste the question's flavor and grinned at him, a wicked smile like he was savoring the stranger's fear.
The stranger was not afraid. He did not know how to be.
The boy's smile widened.
"Fool. You were given fear to keep you away from such things as this. Without it, you throw yourselves at destruction, and throw away everything that was so carefully crafted."
The boy's smile morphed into a disappointed frown.
"Truly a waste. Your God must either be terribly sad. Or too stupid to prioritize quality over numbers."
Rage leaped inside the stranger like a stoked flame. It was sucked out of him, down his arm and through his hand and into the one on the table. The other licked his lips and "hmmed" appreciatively.
"How dare you insult the Almighty God!"
The boy laughed, a high-pitched cackling sound like brittle bones being snapped in half.
"How? This is how: if your God was truly as powerful as you believe, why does He not punish you for what you have done?"
Something like nausea squirmed in the stranger's belly.
"The only thing I have ever done is Ishvallah's work."
"Ishvallah's work? Why doesn't He do His work Himself?"
Another squiggle of nausea. These words, these thoughts, were heresy. One of the faithful would have to fast for seven days and recite seven lines of scripture on each of those days if they could ever hope to be redeemed.
The stranger knew this because they were his thoughts.
Thoughts he was always fighting, always denying, but still damnably his own.
"The Maker makes so that the Made may make their own."
The boy glanced at the body on the table. His eyes flashed in the minimal light - yellow, though brighter and crueler than the other's.
Where one had coins of gold, the other had pools of poison.
"And so they have made. They have made a fire of life into banked coals of smoldering suffering. Your God did not stop this, so He must endorse it." Those pools of poison flicked back to the stranger. "So this is God's work."
"No!" The stranger told himself his shaking was from exertion. "Ishvallah commands us to care for one another. A drop of water quenches no thirst, but thousands feed a river."
The boy rolled his eyes.
"A dead man wrote that onto the dried skin of a dead goat, so it must be true."
The stranger realized what it was that stood before him in the guise of a naked child. He narrowed his eyes, his mind plucking lines of purifying scripture from his memory.
"What manner of demon are you?"
The boy's smile was back, somehow wider and more wicked than before.
"I'm so pleased you asked. I have many names."
Something behind the boy, something large and heavy.
"Some call me the universe. Some the world. Some the All. Some the One."
A ringing, thunking sound, like a lodestone being placed gently on the marble floor.
"But you… You may call me God."
XXX
The man made a high roaring sound, something between a scream and a war cry, and threw himself at the boy.
His hand held fast to the first one, not out of his own choice. His fingers would not spread, his palm would not leave the their face.
The de on wearing the body of a boy laughed, a cruel giggle that rose into a triumphant cackle the more the man struggled, swiping his free hand through the empty space between him and the laughing boy.
"That's enough."
The boy froze, cutting himself off mid-cackle, and stiffened into a pose so rigid it would make a drill sergeant's heart fill with pride. Behind him, the large shape moved closer, stepping out of the darkness and towering over him like a bear coming down on a rabbit. The man was breathing hard and baring his teeth, but he knew that whatever creature was powerful enough to stop a demon was deserving of respect, however grudging.
A pair of large, heavy hands loomed into the light and settled on the boy's shoulders. Red points of light glowed above them, the shining of a predators' eyes.
Then the entity spoke.
"Please, sir, take your hand off my brother. You can let go now."
It spoke with the same voice as the boy.
It echoed and was lined with softness and kindness where the boy's was sharpened by malice, but the cadence, the pitch, was the same.
The man didn't so much let go as he did stumble forward as whatever force had been holding him in place let him go. Without it, he lurched forward under his own weight and barely stopped himself from breaking his nose on the marble.
The boy shivered beneath the creature's paws. He blinked, then worked his jaw like he was testing his control over his joints, then blinked again and slumped slightly, his arms and head bowing with something akin to exhaustion. He took a wobbly step forward, the creature's paws sliding off his shoulders, steadied himself, lifted his head met the man's gaze with his own.
Twins of gold coins, polished and bright.
"You're still here." The boy spoke with the voice of the creature, though the lingering echo was noticeably absent. "Your mind's still here. So's the rest of you."
The man's breathing had eased and his snarl had turned into a confused frown. The boy looked back at him steadily, then took a less steady step forward.
"Are you… Did you come for us?"
The man didn't know. He was no longer sure what he had come here for, as he no longer knew what he was looking at.
The boy threw himself at the man as if his silence had been an answer. The man caught him instinctively and the boy collapsed against him. He wasn't starved like the one on the table, but it was obvious that he had little strength in his body.
"Take us with you."
The coins had melted into flames of desperation.
"Wherever you're going, wherever you're from, please, just… please."
The boy was tiny and pale in the man's arms.
His skin was cold as death.
The man moved slowly, reverently, as he pulled his hands from under the boy's arms and slid them over his shoulders, passed his neck, and cupped the boy's face as if it were made from the gold in his eyes.
"Yes. You will come with me."
Alchemy sparked from the man's fingertips.
The boy's eyes widened, then slid closed.
His last breath came out as a tired, resigned sigh.
The marble shattered as the room came apart.
XXX
The High Commander studied the cracked stone, the splattered blood, the boys lying discarded like field-dressed viscera.
"How did this happen?"
The Bringer's fourth child frowned, kicking a chunk of marble to the side with their bare foot.
"Some big shot revolutionary blew his way in here and then tried to blow himself." Their eyes roved over the broken pieces of the Conduit with an amused half-smile. "He was about twenty-five percent successful."
The Bringer's brow furrowed, the mildly annoyed expression equivalent to an outburst of fury.
"Where is he now?"
The child glanced analyzed the blood, their gaze following its trail towards the makeshift hallway.
"Probably halfway between here and the square, bleeding out and wondering where his loving God is now."
"Fool. He looked into the eyes of God and denied the truth he saw."
The child didn't dare roll their eyes.
"Reassemble the Conduit, then have the technicians perform maintenance. The Translator appears to be damaged."
"Yes, Father."
The child waited until the Bringer had taken his leave, then stepped through the pooled blood to reach their hands down to haul the Translator off the floor. They paused before slinging the boy over their shoulder to study the oozing slice across his cheek.
"Be grateful the Transcriber intervened. Imagine Father's anger if he had to put you back together."
The Translator said nothing, but the child knew he was listening. They felt the boy's blunted nails scrape their back as his fingers half curled into a partial fist. The child gave his ribs a reminding squeeze.
"We need you whole. The Transcriber's for cutting into pieces."
The Translator crabbed his hand and pressed it into the child's unnatural skin. The child laughed as if the pressure tickled.
"And he's good for it, too," the child hissed. The words sounded like a continuation, but the Translator heard the warning and let his hand go limp.
"You chose this life," the child said, all humor gone from their voice as they pulled the Translator from over their shoulder like they were depositing a sack of grain on the floor and pressed the Translator into the human-shaped indent in the wall. He fit in the gap seamlessly. The child closed the restraints on his arms, legs, and torso that kept him from falling out of place.
"So don't go blaming us for turning what you ruined into something useful."
If the Fourth Highest Emissary saw the silver lining the Translator's golden eyes, they said nothing of it.