(Publishing every other Wednesday unless otherwise noted)

Chapter 135: The Machinists

There is a theology (bordering on heresy) that is quite popular in Goug. It posits that God is essentially a machinist, but one of incredible power and sophistication. He set up the machinery that governs that laws of reality, and then set the machine in motion. The implications of this theology, and its relationship to the Church's doctrine, has been the subject of long debate, among pious Machinists, rebellious priests, and amateur theologians of all stripes. If the world we live in is merely a giant machine, what does that say about free will? Are all human beings merely especially complex Workers, automatons acting out an illusion of purpose? Can there be such a thing as holy or unholy, virtue or sin, when we are all merely parts acting out our appointed purpose? In the context of such a divine machine, what exactly was the Saint? A tool chosen by God to achieve necessary repairs?

Barich Fendsor rarely partook in these debates anymore (it had become dangerous for him long before the Templars and the Inquisition had gotten their claws into him), but he still cherished the theory. It informed everything about how he saw the world. First, that machinery must operate on underlying principles, and that understanding those principles might help you better use the machine. Second, that a machine was built for a purpose, and Barich found it comforting to think there was purpose to the world, even if he could not yet understand it.

And third: all machines need repair. No machine, however expertly designed, can function without at least occasional maintenance. So Barich would do his best to understand the machine, and repair it...and, perhaps, improve it.

It was only after he was caught that Barich understood the darker aspects of a mechanistic world. That a machine required many parts to function. That those parts could be worn by regular use...or broken, if they failed to serve their purpose.

How long had he felt himself close to breaking now? How long had he felt worn and ragged, and heard scrapes and squeals from the metal of his soul? How long had he felt the cracks in his being, growing deeper with every strain and stress?

Too long. Much too long. Long before the Church had caught him, even. As he realized all his understanding, and all his insight, and all his talent, couldn't divert the machine that claimed to speak for God.

If the universe is a machine, so is human civilization. It is a less elegant machine, but a machine nevertheless. And all those machines we call civilization require that some people be machinists...and some people be merely parts.

In all his life, Barich Fendsor had never known a machinist of Goug allowed to operate the machine of society. The best he could hope for was to be a repairman standing outside of it. And even that would be taken from him, should he cross the wrong person, or chase the wrong purpose. If it could happen to Besrodio Bunansa, it could happen to anyone.

But Barich had saved Besrodio, even from a Cardinal's wrath. And he would save men like Besrodio, as many as he could, while he worked to be the first machinist to seize control of this nightmarish machine, and put the right people in charge of it.

People like Mustadio Bunansa, his breath whistling softly in his throat, his face pale.

Barich could not tend to him as a Healer, but to be machinist was to have many kinds of knowledge, and besides, he was the one who'd read about Cloud Strife and planned its Ivalician incarnation. He knew what the fungal toxin could do, and he kept supplies of the antidote on hand. Mustadio's breathing was strained, but it was easier than it had been five minutes before, and even easier than it had been been five minutes before that. His lips had lost their bluish tint, and there was even a flush of color in his cheeks.

He was going to live. Barich had guaranteed it.

He couldn't resist checking on his old friend every five minutes. But he allowed himself no more than that, when the crisis was past. Not all of Mustadio's allies were dead—some had escaped the trap he'd sprung upon them. He did not know if it was worth fighting against them, but he had to at least know where they were, and how many of them remained.

So he gave orders to his Worker, and sent them roving around the Foundry in search of them. He kept one dark eye on the Matoya while he worked at his bench, carefully ingraining fresh materials into the chambers of his revolver. It wasn't ready yet, but it would be soon. And the one he'd taken from Mustadio had given him fresh ideas. That one had worked by creating custom, lethal spells through the interaction of bullet and pistol alike, infusing ordinary bullets with special speed and piercing power and infusing enhanced bullets with the force of a dragon's teeth.

Barich froze as inspiration struck. Carefully, he lowered his pincer and graining tool and started flipping through a stack of nearby papers. He found the page he wanted, grabbed a pencil and jotted out quick designs in the marigins as equations flickered through his head. Make the barrel of special materials, make the bullets ordinary but with the right combination of Ydoran runes, let the runes feed the spells and you have a spell gun capable of firing as many different spells as you have bullets, how it had taken him this long to-?

He froze again, frowned, cocked his head to one side and absently brushed a lock of greasy brown hair from his broad forehead. Mustadio's breathing was slow and regular, as though he was finally free of the poison. But the antidote didn't work that quickly or cleanly...and even if it did, Mustadio had spent enough time in the Bunansas's workshop with Mustadio slumped over his workdesk, snoring gently.

"You're not strong enough to reach any of the weapons in time," Barich said, picking up his spellgun from its place on the opposite table "And even if you kill me, the Workers won't obey you. You'll be alone in the Wastes."

Mustadio was laying on Barich's rumpled cot in the corner of the workshop. His face was still a little pale, and his eyes were closed. After a moment's silence, he opened them, and turned cold blue eyes on Barich. "Where are my friends?"

"Some are dead," Barich said. "Some are in the wind." He glanced at his Matoya again, saw nothing but silver desert under blue morning skies. "Soon as I find some sign of them, I'll send you back."

Mustadio blinked. "What?"

"What?" Barich asked. "Did you expect me to ask you to join me?" He shook his head. "I know you better than that." He paused, and his face fell. "Besides...if there was any of hope of you taking that ship, I think it sailed a long time ago. When they declared Ramza Beoulve a heretic-"

"That...might change," Mustadio said softly.

Barich laughed. "Oh? Why is that?"

Mustadio hesitated, and said nothing. Barich itched with curiosity, but forced his questions down. "Why are you in the Wastes?"

Mustadio hesitated another moment, then asked in turn, "What is this place?"

Barich considered Mustadio for a long time. "Come and see," he said at last. He strolled over to Mustadio, and offered him the hand not holding the gun.

Mustadio's eyes flickered to the gun, then back to Barich. "Is that really necessary?"

"You ask this when you were going to fake sleep so you could get the drop on me?"

"I ask this after you gassed me and set a Worker on me."

"You wandered into a place you were not supposed to be, and my Worker pulled you out of the trap you set off." Barich's annoyance crept into his voice. "If you don't want to see the Foundry-"

Mustadio grimaced, and took his hand. Half-carrying his old friend, Barich started to lead him out of his workspace. Mustadio stopped after only a few steps, staring at the Matoya. "Is that-?"

Barich nodded, glancing at it again. The crystal orb was one of a pair—one a transmitter, one a receiver. The transmitter saw as though through an eye, and broadcast those images to the receiver, wherever it might be. They had been fairly rare even in the time of the Ydorans, and the art of making them had been lost. Those few that remained were closely guarded and highly prized (one pair had been taken from this very fortress complex in the expedition that had found it, and now guarded Mullonde's great harbor). He had been very lucky to find another pair in the Archipelago, and even luckier to keep it secret from the Church.

"But that's not what I want to show you." Barich started to guide him out of the workspace: after a moment, Mustadio allowed himself to be pulled away. But they soon stopped again, when they stepped out into the Foundry proper.

It was an impressive space, his Foundry: a cavernous stone chamber, supported by enormous columns that flared at the floor and at the ceiling. Faded images covered the columns, tattered pictures of armies marching and magical creatures burning with power, of grand cities and throne rooms and councils, of men laboring in mines and mountains, of libraries and churches, of weddings and celebrations. Enough remained that you could feel the echoes of their majesty, even if you could not quite see the details.

Tables and forges were scattered across this immense space: a great clutter of metal, machinery, fine tools, parchment, pen and ink. The impression was one of carefully controlled chaos: a circular table here, layered in thin wire, near where a great anvil gleamed before a dark forge, across from rows of tables laden with simple tools and scrap metal. Enough room to move, but each area clearly designated, separate from the others, to enable a level of sophistication in fabrication unequaled outside of Goug.

"You did this?" Mustadio asked.

Barich shrugged. "Church expedition found most of it years ago, but wrote it off. Lots of interesting pieces, taken back to Mullonde for Templar use, but they did not see the value of the infrastructure here."

"Intact?" There was a teasing note in Mustadio's voice.

Barich grinned at the old Machinist joke. Intact meant many things to a Machinist, none of them literal. Nothing of the Ydorans had survived the Fall intact. Not the old fortresses of the Bethla Plains, not the airships, not the Workers, not his Matoya.

"The forges, some of the runic power structures..." Barich shrugged. "Enough to make it worth our while. I helped arrange the setup and supplies here before we went to the Archipelago for testing."

"Testing what?" Mustadio's question was far too nonchalant.

Barich gave him an amused look. "How do you think this is going to go, Dio?"

Mustadio grimaced. "Do not call me that."

A pang in Barich's heart. He did not let it show on his face. "How do you think is going to go?" he asked again. "You know who I am. You know what I am capable of. I was one of the best machinists in Goug before I had access to the Church's resources. Now..." He gestured around them. "This place was one of the forges of the Bethla Plains. It supplied the fortresses and armies here with the weapons they needed for their campaigns across Ivalice and beyond. I used what remained of it so that we could deploy Cloud Strife."

Mustadio's head jerked up as though he'd been struck. "What?"

Barich sighed. "Come on." He led Mustadio down through the controlled chaos of the Foundry floor, up towards the growbeds. "You know the Ydorans experimented with agriculture too, yes? There are rumors of artificial suns in Midnight's Deep..." He tried to imagine how such a construct could work: what combination of magic and technology would produce the necessary light and heat? How could the reaction that powered such a sun be self-sustaining? God, what he wouldn't give for a chance to study one...

"Yes." Mustadio's voice was stiff.

"The fruits of those labors were spread to facilities like this." Barich sighed. "No artificial suns, of course, but greenhouses, growrooms, hydroponics...these were more possible. Once I understood some of how Cloud Strife was supposed to function..."

The short hallway off the Foundry floor ended in a heavy metal door. The stone of the hall was worn, but the metal was fresh, and free of rust. Mustadio eyed that door suspiciously. "This is new."

"It is," Barich said. "And airtight, too." He gestured above them. "We're belowground right now, but that room used to be a greenhouse. We repurposed it for our needs. Now it grows the Mosfungus."

Mustadio stared at the door. His eyes flickered to the masks hanging beside the door—jet black wood, with slits for the eyes. Underneath the wood was a thin-woven gauze, to keep the fungal spores from reaching the harvester's lungs. Mosfungus wasn't terribly dangerous in its basic mushroom form, but growing it in the quantities they needed to arm the mines...better safe than sorry.

"You're a fine machinist, Mustadio," Barich mused. "But as I recall, you were never much for medicine, agriculture, biology..."

"What is your point?" Mustadio's voice was flat. His eyes were still fixed on the door.

"So maybe you do not know much about the Mosfungus, and why it is the heart of the Cloud Strife weapon." He prodded Mustadio's chest gently with one finger. "You have felt its effects now."

Mustadio's shoulders went stiff. Barich gave him a pat on the shoulder, then strolled back to the Foundry floor. A moment later, he heard Mustadio limping after him.

"It was not just the forges and the machinery you needed," Mustadio said softly. "It was the greenhouses, too. The agricultural tech. Runes to speed the growing of living things."

Barich nodded. "Mosfungus is not like other poison mushrooms—not like Death's Head, Saint's Tongue, Lucavi's Breath. Eat one cap, and you will not die. But the poison of that one cap lingers in your system. One cap will not kill you. Two might make your nose stuff. Three, your chest stats to feel tight. Four, and you can hardly breathe."

Barich fumbled around one of the tables until he found what he was looking for—a half-complete Cloud Strife mine. Finished, it would be roughly the size of a human head. He held it up for Mustadio's inspection without looking back at him. "Calculations vary from mine to mine—we cannot use identical tech in every one. Some of the weaker ones only spawn spores equal to...say, ten caps. But some of the better ones..." He put the mine down. "Up to two hundred."

Mustadio picked up the half-complete mine almost as soon as Barich had put it down. He studied it for a long time.

"So how will you use them?" Mustadio asked, too casually, as though Barich could not see what he intended to do.

"Oh, it is a simple enough plan," Barich admitted. "You and your friends have been fighting the Church long enough to know the extent of their reach." He grimaced, and rubbed at the ache in his left wrist, where a Templar had broken ii almost two years ago. "They have agents among both armies, and allies where they do not have agents. Our mutual friend Delita sits in the high councils of the Nanten. I believe there are similar agents, at least as highly placed, among the Hokuten." He gestured at the bomb. "They will lay the mines to the best effect. The poison will choke both armies."

Mustadio stared at him. "That...that is horrible."

Barich nodded. "It is."

"How can you allow this?"

Barich sighed. "Before I answer, I suppose...I suppose I would know." He faced his friend squarely. "When last we spoke, you had your share of unkind words for me."

Mustadio winced. His hands tightened into fists at his side. A moment later, and his resolve returned, and blue eyes opened to stab at Barich. Barich locked his gaze with his friend, and refused to look away.

"You were right," Barich said softly. Mustadio's eyes widened, and Barich pressed, "You were right. I..." He rubbed the old ache in his wrist again. "I had fought so long for Goug, and the Independence Coalition was caught by the Inquisition, and I was so...Mus, I was so afraid."

His voice trembled. His mind shrank back from dreadful memories: from bursts of magic at the doors, from rough hands grabbing hold of him, from the lightning-laced agony of the Templar's boot as it ground against his splintering wrist. He rubbed at the old ache again.

"So I...I did as they asked," he said softly. "Told them things I shouldn't have."

He let his gaze fall a moment, then locked eyes with Mustadio again. "It was cowardice. I was a coward. But not anymore. Not when I realized...what lies ahead." He gestured around them. "Yes. This is monstrous. I arm an old weapon of the Ydorans, to shed blood and sow horror. But you know as well as I do, Mustadio...this is the trade of a machinist. To turn wonders into horrors." He paused. "I heard you bombed Lionel City."

Mustadio's pale face went paler still. "That is not the same."

"No?" Barich asked. "You do great violence in the hopes of serving a higher cause. You killed the Cardinal who betrayed you." He inclined his head. "That is a worthy goal. I applaud you."

Mustadio laughed sharply. "Strange words from a Templar."

Barich shrugged. "I am a talented machnist, Mus. But I am not irreplaceable." He gestured around them. "I am proud of this place. None but you or your father could have wrought better. But there are other machinists who could have gotten close. Am I wrong?"

Mustadio did not speak. His lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Were my hands not laboring here, others would be," Barich said. "But my labors have worth, and so do my demands. The Hokuten and Nanten have spilled their blood, and the blood of others, all over Ivalice. Now, with one final bloodletting, we will have peace. The new regent will be a friend of the Church. And the Church ascendant will let Goug go free." He laughed. "I am inclined to ask if Goug can be the new seat of power in Lionel...perhaps a kind of...duumvirate with the Church. But the details matter less than the reality. Goug will go free."

Mustadio said nothing for a little while. Slowly, he sank onto a nearby bench, and closed his hands over his mouth, as though he were trying to swallow screams. He lifted his head, his mouth still covered, his eyes screwed closed, and stared up at the ceiling as though he were praying.

"You cannot believe they will allow this." Mustadio's words were muffled by his hands.

"I have the word of Inquisitor Lucianada Zalmour."

"I know," Mustadio said. "I spoke with him."

Barich blinked. His thoughts stumbled over themselves. "What?"

"We visited the Archipelago," Mustadio said. "We spoke with the Queen...and with Delita...and with Zalmour." He paused, then opened his eyes, and lowered his hands, laying them on the table. "They helped us kill the Cardinal."

"You..." He stared at Mustadio for a long time, then threw back his head and laughed. The laughter felt dangerous inside him, lightning piercing the stormclouds in his head. But he needed to laugh, as his wrist ached, as his thoughts spun.

"You outran Baerd and all his men," Barich chuckled, his cheeks aching, his heart cracking. "You killed two cardinals, and who knows how many Templars. Your friends are wanted heretics, and you've stayed ahead of any who would you for months, and you convince the Inquisitor who hunted you to fight at your side." Barich looked back at Mustadio. "Ah, my friend. You make me ashamed."

Mustadio closed his eyes, and shook his head. Neither of them spoke for awhile. Mustadio closed his eyes again.

"So," Barich said. "You spoke with the Inquisitor?"

Mustadio nodded. He seemed paler than he had moments before—perhaps stress and exertion left him feeling the poison's effects more clearly.

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth."

"The truth." Barich was quiet a moment. "So it's true. About the Lucavi."

Mustadio nodded. "Cardinal Delacroix was one. Wiegraf Folles was another. Marquis Elmdor, too."

"The Marquis is dead."

"He is now."

Barich shook his head as his thoughts whirled. "Who else?"

Mustadio shrugged. "We are not sure. But we suspect Vormav."

Barich looked around the Foundry. He had seen no proof of Lucavi among the Church's ranks...but then, he had not seen Workers move and fight, before the Archipelago. There were wonders and horrors in the archives of the Ydorans. Why not demons, too?

"Inquisitor Zalmour is a good man," Barich mused. "If he believes you...I can believe you, too."

Mustadio's eyes flashed open. He seemed sickly, unfocused, and Barich ached to see his friend that way. But the damage had been done. Time might heal the wound, but it could not erase it. Consequence follows action. That was the way of the world.

"Then...Barich. Listen." Mustadio's voice was taut. "They...the Lucavi...gain something from this. I do not yet understand what. Some of them have of spoken of it...Elmdor raised a dead man to serve him, and the dead man warned us at the cost of his...unlife. There are secrets in the Germonique Gospel that hint at it, too. I do not know what they intend. But it is monstrous."

Mustadio petered out, and closed his eyes again. Barich waited patiently.

"Barich..." Mustadio took a deep breath. "I know you...I know you have always wanted to see Goug free. But what you are doing...it will not free Goug. It will only place a crueler hand about our throat. Please..."

"Please what?" Barich asked. "Stop the attack at Bethla Garrison?"

Mutely, Mustadio nodded. Beads of sweat stood out against his forehead. The ache in Barich's heart was deeper than the ache in his wrist. As an apprentice machinist in Besrodio Bunansa's workshop, he had been annoyed by the blonde monkey, clambering about machines, moving tools and chuckling underfoot. He had been annoyed at a boy who had demanded so much, expected so much, simply because of his father's name.

And then, months into his work on the Lionel war caravan, Mustadio had walked up, adjusted a panel on the caravan engine, and run away giggling. And after Barich had finished chasing him with a wrench in his hand, he had returned to find the engine humming with special vigor. Because it wasn't just his father's name Mustadio had inherited: it was his father's talent.

So Barich had stopped minding when the boy came underfoot. He had listened to his ever-sharp observations, and taught him what he knew. He had shared with him his own private belief in the world: a machine wrought by God, that human beings could understand, if they only had the vision to see, and the courage to act upon their knowledge. And Barich Fendsor, just another orphan of the Fifty Years' War, had found a little brother, worth teaching, worth protecting.

"Ah, Mus..." The regret in his voice was genuine. He wondered if things might have gone another way. If he had joined Mustadio in fleeing Goug, rather than staying behind...if he had stayed in the Archipelago, to join this battle against Cardinal Bremondt...

But consequence follows action. And the consequences were written in stone.

"If you were me," Barich asked. "How would you have prepared this place? What orders would you have given? What materials wound you have ready?"

Mustadio's jaw clenched. He did not speak.

"The Church had made its plans," Barich said. "And it trusted me to realize them. I made my own plans in turn. Concocted several hypotheses, for how Cloud Strife might work. I gave my orders, to begin preparations long before I returned with a working prototype." He paused. "The mine that hurt you...it was one of the last ones we finished. We hit our minimum requirements a week ago. The last of our agents left two days before you and your friends found my Worker." Guilt and glee mingled oddly in the pit of his stomach: he almost felt drunk to the point of vomiting, dizzy and delighted and disgusted. "It's too late to stop it."

Mustadio's head sank slowly to the table in front of him—the one that held the half-complete mine. He buried his head in his hands, and said nothing.

In moments like this, Barich rather hoped men were nothing more than clever clockwork written in meat. Then the guilt he felt would be hollow, false: he would bear no responsibility, for obeying the obscure purpose for which he'd been designed. But whatever the nature of this divine machine, Barich did not believe men lacked free will. The despair he saw written in his friend's face...he had put it there.

"I am sorry," he said again, and reached out to touch his friend. But as he reached out for Mustadio, he saw a strange gleam in the darkness between his hands.

He snatched at his friend's hand, pulled it towards him. The gleam slipped between his fingers, and clinked against the table. It was a crystal vial, empty now of whatever it had once contained. And Mustadio's hand felt clammy in Barich's.

Barich stared down at the empty vial, then looked back at Mustadio. "What...what is this?" Terror squeezed his heart with cold hands. "Mus, did you...did you poison yourself?"

Mustadio's eyes were glassy, and his breathing hitched. Cursing under his breath, Barich sprinted back to his workshop. He had a whole cabinet of possible antidotes, one of them would do the trick. It would. He would not lose Mustadio. That was a consequence he refused to allow.

But movement from the Matoya caught his eye as he was sprinting by. He glanced at it, then froze.

His Worker was advancing steadily south. And in the distance, figures were moving. Towards the Worker. Towards the Foundry.