“This is the first you’ve encoun­tered such a thing, Coro­ner?” * said the man in white. He adjust­ed his wide hat, pulled low.

Beside him strode a man in a grey apron and rolled shirt­sleeves. Sweat glis­tened on his brown fore­arms and brow. Heat and anx­i­ety. A brick wall clad in trop­i­cal creep­ers staged them as they walked.

“Yes,” said the Coro­ner, twitch­ing a hand. “Well, not the first I’ve heard, Señor Inves­ti­gador, but the first I’ve seen. The cut­ters at the Heron’s Perch are full of tales, you see.”

The Inves­ti­ga­tor kicked a small stone over the mossy pavers. He waved away a sticky gnat.

“What is it these cut­ters say?”

The Coro­ner stopped and leant an elbow against the wall. “Inves­ti­gador,” he said, turn­ing open a palm, sup­pli­cant. “Before I speak, I need assur­ance. For my safe­ty.”

“Why?”

Ner­vous­ly, the Coro­ner glanced to a badge on the Inves­ti­ga­tor’s jack­et: A lit­tle sil­ver eye with sev­en points about it, like spiky lash­es. “Ah,” said the man who wore it, notic­ing. Neath the hat brim, he smiled, thin. “Of course. You have my assur­ance. Your con­nec­tion to this inves­ti­ga­tion is inci­den­tal. Mere­ly that.”

The Coro­ner gri­maced, nod­ded. “Of course,” he echoed. He resumed walk­ing. The man in white fol­lowed. Beside, the wall end­ed and gave way to tan brick tall­hous­es spi­dered with oil-dark ivy. Green and yel­low birds flit­ted cross the lane.

“So. The tales?” prompt­ed the Inves­ti­ga­tor.

“Yes. The cut­ters speak of ruins with­in our island, made long ago by the dead Nôr.”

“Every­one on Illa Cor­voy knows this place is lousy with ruins, Coro­ner.”

“That is not all. The cut­ters trade tales of a cer­tain enclave with­in the deep boscage. They say the ancients lured a crea­ture there from anoth­er place.”

“What man­ner of crea­ture?”

“One shaped like a man. Some eidolon.”

“Like the spec­i­men we are going to see?”

“Yes. But head and shoul­ders greater. They say he is broad like the stat­ue of Saint Tian in Gio­ra Square.”

The white hat tipped, looked at the oth­er man. “I will admit some sur­prise, Coro­ner, your tongue is edu­cat­ed. And you have been to Car­ro. ** You are not some back-island corpse-lug­ger.”

“I attend­ed la Acad­e­mia, Señor,” said the Coro­ner. He pawed sweat from his brow with a hand­ker­chief. “My moth­er was a saf­fron buy­er. She paid my way.”

“You are wast­ed in this job.”

“No, I enjoy it. Not too bor­ing, not too excit­ing.”

“And there will always be bod­ies to embalm.” †

“Yes,” said the Coro­ner, slow­ly. He stopped at a yel­low door. The man in white stood behind him, not­ed the hang­ing sign. It read “Mor­tuo­rio.”

“Who first told you of this eidolon?” said the Inves­ti­ga­tor, watched the oth­er man put a key to the lock.

“A Belvirin­ian mouse. Returned on ven­ture from the inte­ri­or. She had a char­coal rub­bing tak­en from a relief. An image of a huge man with a beard of chains. Evoca­tive.”

“Abom­inable.”

The Coro­ner paused a moment, one foot through the open door. A bead of mois­ture crept down his tem­ple. “Indeed.”

They stepped through the thresh­old. A small office lay beyond. Creamy light fell from opaque, long win­dows clogged with ivy, lit a desk, a sparse rug, a heavy cur­tain at the back. The dry tang of grey salt met their throats. “Through here,” said the coro­ner. They passed through the drape. “Mind the dark.”

There was a click, a spark, a greasy flut­ter of flar­ing oil. Pale light fell from an iron hood, revealed a table. There lay the bare shape of a woman, indis­tinct under a pale sheet.

“One hun­dred eighty-two cen­time­ters in height,” said the Coro­ner. “And one hun­dred and six­ty kilos. Took a cou­ple fel­lows to car­ry it in here.”

The Inves­ti­ga­tor nod­ded, cir­cled the body. Bright, star­ing pin­pricks glim­mered under the shad­ow of his hat. “Tell me again who dis­cov­ered it?”

“Cus­toms office. Found some cut­ters attempt­ing to smug­gle it out of port. Poor­ly, at that. Had it in a crate marked ‘opals’.”

“Like­ly no less valu­able, to a buy­er.”

The Inves­ti­ga­tor stopped his cir­cling. Abrupt­ly, he pinched the sheet, tugged. Cloth flut­tered under the light. Bright porce­lain and steel gleamed under the oil lamp. A twitch of dis­gust flared the man’s nos­trils. “Like a doll,” he said, pulled a long fin­ger over the thing’s sculpt­ed ceram­ic lips, as if check­ing for dust.

“Yes, but per­fect­ly pro­por­tioned.”

The Inves­ti­ga­tor traced his fin­ger over an unyield­ing cheek, an open glass eye. “If it were crude, it would some­how be less blas­phe­mous.” He tapped the eye, sneered, with­drew his hand. “It is undam­aged,” he stat­ed.

“Yes.”

“But it was dead when found?”

“As still as it is now.”

“You have exam­ined it for life?”

“I sus­pect it nev­er lived,” said the Coro­ner.

“Bien. Lit­tle more than per­verse stat­u­ary, then,” said the inves­ti­ga­tor. Teeth flashed neath his hat brim. “A shame for the fool­ish cut­ters that their sen­tence will not be reduced.” He waved a hand at the body, turned away. “Have it crushed and slagged.”

“I will con­tact the smelter, Señor Inves­ti­gador.”

The man in white extend­ed a hand, took the Coroner’s sweaty palm. “The Inqui­si­tion is glad for your coop­er­a­tion, Coro­ner. I am sur­prised you asked for assur­ance. You are a fine and right­eous man.”

“Thank you, Señor.”

They passed through the cur­tain, back to the office. Shapes of ivy leaves, sten­ciled by the win­dows, fell over the floor. “You will, of course, report any future abom­i­na­tions of this vari­ety.”

“Of course.”

“Good day, Coro­ner.”

“Good day.” The office door clunked shut. The Coro­ner locked it. He pro­duced his hand­ker­chief, dabbed sweat from his face and neck. He set an elbow to the closed door, leaned there. A shud­der­ing breath pulled through him. “He is gone,” he said, low.

Behind him, past the cur­tain, there was a scrape of move­ment. Ceram­ic toes clicked as they met the floor­boards. Seg­ment­ed fin­gers with sculpt­ed nails part­ed the cloth, cau­tious. Blue­bot­tle glass eyes peered around, flit­ting and alive in the unchang­ing porce­lain vis­age.

The Coro­ner turned. “We must find you some clothes, a dis­guise,” he said. The blue eyes nod­ded.

“And we must find you an escape from Illa Cor­voy.”

Thun­der shud­dered over the low, slate peaks. Blue rivulets of light­ning crawled through the night. Some­where on the slopes, a pine flared up like a match­head, licked by a drip­ping tongue of plas­ma.

On one hill, a blonde head peered from the mouth of a shel­tered cave. A cut­ter in leathers, sur­vey­ing the storm-lashed scree. She with­drew into the rock. She plucked up a dinged, blunt side­sword and poked her small fire of pinecones dis­con­so­late­ly. †† There, a spit­ted teacup hoglet bur­bled its mea­ger fat into the hiss­ing flames. Smoke ran up and out along the ceil­ing, sucked out by wind. A crack of thun­der rip­pled through the rock. She rubbed her ears and glared into the fire.

Out­side, there was a crunch of scree. The Cut­ter star­tled and snapped to the cave mouth. The grat­ing of moun­tain grav­el neared, loud­er, rhyth­mic. She gripped the sword, dirty with ash­es and pork­fat. “I don’t sup­pose you’re a hun­gry rag­wretch come to eat me?” she said, tone belied only a lit­tle fear.

A black-gloved hand gripped the cave edge, pulled a body into view. A tall woman in a leather coat and full casque. “No, Seño­ra,” said she, metal­lic inside the helm. “Mere­ly a cut­ter seek­ing solace from the storm. I saw the smoke.”

The Cut­ter exhaled and eased down the sword. “Then it seems we’re alike. Join me.”

The tall cut­ter stepped through. “My thanks. Few caves here are not filled with wretch­es.” She crunched over to the fire, tossed down a pack and a bar­rel-fed gun­spring. The blonde cut­ter ogled the expen­sive weapon, the ban­doliers of mag­a­zines and spare alloy coils.

“I am Ópal,” said the hel­met­ed cut­ter. They shook hands, hard and strong.

“Ada­line Nor­thing, of Dour.”

Ópal set­tled to the dusty floor with a thump and a small crash of steel. “I am pleased to find a fel­low ven­tur­er in these crags, Ada­line. What brings you here?” She said, tug­ging at the laces of her helm. A glint of blue eye showed through the mesh visor.

“Ah, well,” said Ada­line, glum. “Ven­tur­ing, I sup­pose. Not much of a cut­ter, though. Left the fam­i­ly farm a win­ter back, thought I’d get rich.” She gazed at the fine steel and soft leather of Ópal’s gear. “Had one good job, but my part­ners ran off with my cu—”

She broke off, stared at the oth­er cut­ter. “Is that a mask?” said Ada­line uneasy.

“No,” said Ópal, set­ting down the hel­met. She fixed Ada­line with cobalt eyes, the only move­ment amidst the porce­lain. A per­ma­nent turn of amuse­ment curled the sculpt­ed lips. “I have afeared you,” she said, regret­ful.

“No,” said Ada­line, try­ing to drop her con­cerned frown. “Well. A lit­tle.”

A chirrup­ing bur­ble emanat­ed from Ópal’s, like a music box mim­ic­k­ing laugh­ter. Ada­line tried to return the chuck­le, grinned, uncom­fort­able. “I know this is very rude, but, is all of you like that?”

“Yes,” Ópal. She stripped off a glove, extend­ed a joint­ed, creamy-pale hand to Ada­line. Gin­ger­ly, the human prod­ded it, mar­veled at the stat­uesque detail of the dig­its, the weird grey cords neath every divi­sion in the fin­ger-joints. The hand was hard, cold, but pli­able at the joints, and the fin­ger­tips were scratched. Abrad­ed, crazed like the bot­tom of a worn teacup. Ada­line lin­gered, rolling a hard dig­it between her flesh­ly fin­ger­tips, feel­ing the wear. She pulled sud­den­ly away. “Sor­ry.”

“You’ve done no wrong,” said, Ópal. She sat back com­fort­ably, elbows draped on knees. Out­side, thun­der rip­pled immense­ly.

“It’s not every day you have to ask what some­one is. I feel like a child.”

“A fair ques­tion. I’m told we are not many.”

“Who’s ‘we’?

“I am not entire­ly sure,” said Ópal, tilt­ing her head. A drop of sad­ness tinged her tone, incon­gru­ent with the expres­sion. “I have been told of clock­work peo­ple, ani­mun­culi, on Illa Cor­voy, where I first have mem­o­ries.”

“But, weren’t there more like you, on Cor­voy?”

“I sup­pose there must have been, but I do not remem­ber. My first rec­ol­lec­tions are of kind Alagóran cut­ters. They said they found me, taught me to speak.”

“Where are they?”

“I do not know. They were caught try­ing to smug­gle me from the island, from the Inqui­si­tion. ‡ I would not have escaped but for a sym­pa­thet­ic coro­ner.”

Idly, Ada­line pulled her hog from the spit. She held it up. “I don’t sup­pose you…?”

Ópal shook her head. Ada­line noticed a spi­der­ing of lit­tle cracks in the turn­ing skull’s base. “You’re dam­aged,” she said, chew­ing.

“Yes. It’s not so easy to find a suf­fi­cient crafts­man.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Some­what. Though, I under­stand I do not hurt as oth­ers do.”

“And you can feel?”

Ópal nod­ded, drew her fin­ger­tips along the ground. They grat­ed soft­ly.

“With hard skin like that, you must be a valu­able cut­ter.”

“I am well paid by those who would pay me. I am jour­ney­ing North, for this rea­son. Alagórans are not unkind to my face, but there are many who are afraid. They would do me no kind­ness. Most would rather hire a blighter.”

“Yeah, but you’re bet­ter to look at. Typ­i­cal barmy South­ern­ers.”

“Typ­i­cal irrev­er­ent Fir­lése,” said Ópal, stern. ‡‡ Sur­prise flushed Ada­line’s face. She quit chew­ing. She searched the impas­sive glass eyes.

The same bur­bling chuck­le filled the cave. Ópal waved a play­ful hand. Ada­line grinned, embar­rassed, resumed her meal. “You must be amaz­ing at cards.”

“I have a cer­tain advan­tage.”

Ada­line frowned and waved the spit. “How’d you become a cut­ter, any­way? I’d reck­on a girl like a mar­ble stat­ue would­n’t ever have to get bloody and dirty. You’d dom­i­nate the Rue de Cou­ture.”

Ópal pro­duced a con­tem­pla­tive, bur­ring hum. “I was taught how to live by the cut­ters who found me. They were very much like par­ents. Ven­tur­ing is all I know how to do.” She tilt­ed her head. “If you were raised by wolves, would you nat­u­ral­ly become a states­man or a chef?”

“Sup­pose you’re right,” said Ada­line. She nib­bled pen­sive­ly at the hog car­cass. “Sup­pose I’m jeal­ous.”

“Of what?”

Ada­line made a face. “It’s obvi­ous. You’re beau­ti­ful and strong and pow­er­ful. You’d make it big whether you were in a Tomb raid or a ball­room. Per­fec­tion.”

“I dis­agree,” said the metal­lic voice, sud­den­ly sharp.

“How?”

“Because I am equal­ly jeal­ous of you: Ada­line Nor­thing, who can walk in any South­ern street with­out fear of the Inqui­si­tion, who knows her fam­i­ly in Dour, whose flesh moves and heals like a prop­er per­son.” Ópal yanked back her sleeve, bared her fore­arm. Spi­dery lines of lead showed where the ceram­ic had been repaired like shat­tered pot­tery.

“Oh,” said Ada­line. Her gaze flit­ted between the arm and the cave floor. Thun­der boomed through the rock. The fire popped once.

After a time, Ópal spoke. “You are also head­ing North?”

“Yeah,” said Ada­line, hes­i­tant.

“Would you trav­el with me for a while?”

The blonde cut­ter’s eyes widened. See­ing this, Ópal shift­ed, waved a hand. “Giv­en you need a ven­tur­ing part­ner and I, unfa­mil­iar with the North, could use—”

“A friend.”

Ópal hes­i­tat­ed only a moment. “Yes.”

“I will,” said Ada­line.

“Good,” said the porce­lain woman.

For a small moment, though it might have been the fire, the light of a smile tru­ly did glit­ter in her glass eyes.

Animunculi

Some­where, deep in the jun­gle inte­ri­or of Illa Cor­voy, there is a hid­den enclave. Far beyond the warm port city, past the placid bluet vine­yards, amidst the thick boscage and drool­ing lion pop­pies. §

There, in a work­shop from anoth­er world labors a sin­gu­lar crea­ture. His eyes are crys­tal. They have glad­ness only for toil. His hands are gauntlets. They idle only in sleep. His beard is sil­ver chain. Its links are worn and melt­ed by time and the lick of kilns.

He is an eidolon arti­san brought to Nôren by the ancients. §§ He is old­er than the Lord of Human­i­ty her­self, and, to those who know of him, no less deif­ic. Though none yet remem­ber why he was brought to the world, it is easy to judge by his toil, for his works are liv­ing beings.

Some will say he is a myth, a tale con­struct­ed to mys­ti­fy the island depths. Cut­ters will say he is real. They have seen his car­ven image on count­less stones and stele in the green inte­ri­or. They know him as the Work­er in the Past.

To the ani­mun­culi, his sen­tient crafts, he is known only as Father.

Porcelain Children

Some decade or so past, tales of liv­ing stat­ues began to flow from Illa Cor­voy. ‖ Crea­tures of smooth­ly artic­u­lat­ed ceram­ic skin, dis­cov­ered in the ruins of the ancient Nôr by ven­tur­ing cut­ters. 

The tales, as they so tend to be from the mouths of cut­ters, were tru­ly unbe­liev­able: Ceram­ic peo­ple, come from the jun­gle with noth­ing but a curi­ous capac­i­ty for lan­guage and skill. Beau­ti­ful, sculpt­ed men and women with glit­ter­ing glass eyes and faces like idyl masks. Clock­work cut­ters strong as two men. Ani­mun­culi: An astound­ing new vari­ety of peo­ple. Unbe­liev­able indeed.

Most every­one came to believe, though, for the ani­mun­culi were real. Ani­muncu­lus cut­ters appeared in island inns and con­sor­tiums, dressed with armor and blade. The banks snapped them up for their might and dura­bil­i­ty. Ani­muncu­lus sailors signed on with mer­chants and leviathan-catch­ers. The cap­tains thought them lucky. An ani­muncu­lus woman appeared at a Court of Empereaux ball in blue chif­fon. The aris­toc­ra­cy of the Isles lost their minds.

In time, high­er pow­ers took note. The dis­tinct­ly aes­thete Court of Empereaux declared its Domin­ion a friend to the beau­ti­ful crea­tures in hopes of lur­ing their cit­i­zen­ship. Fir­lund, Belvirine, and Lothrheim made cur­so­ry recog­ni­tions of this new race of peo­ple, though they were nev­er announced. The Holy Inqui­si­tion of Alagór, incensed at these per­ceived mock­eries of human­i­ty spawn­ing with­in its bor­ders and cracked down on Illa Cor­voy.

Only two years after they had begun mys­te­ri­ous­ly, inno­cent­ly emerg­ing from the jun­gle, the ani­mun­culi were threat­ened. The Inqui­si­tion held a series of noc­tur­nal dis­plays, includ­ing the affix­a­tion of a limb­less, still-liv­ing ani­muncu­lus to the lamp­post out­side the home of his host.

Rumors of the porce­lain peo­ple died down, lest sus­pi­cious yam­mer­ing attract a fear­some Inves­ti­gador. Tales were reduced to whis­pered secrets in cut­ter pubs. This only piqued the cut­ters’ inter­est, how­ev­er. Sto­ries of an excit­ing trade in smug­gling ani­mun­culi from the island sprout­ed among inde­pen­dent ven­tur­ers.

Of course, no cut­ters could yet tell where, pre­cise­ly, the ani­mun­culi came from. Though the rumors would sug­gest oth­er­wise, that infor­ma­tion now belongs sole­ly to a dis­crete few. 

The mys­tery of the ani­mun­culi, who can­not even them­selves say from whence they came, only grows. Whis­pers of the Work­er in the Past only grow more impres­sive. Sto­ries of a leg­endary work­shop deep with­in the jun­gle only grow wilder.

Living Steel

Ani­mun­culi are craft­ed by tools and tech­nolo­gies unknown to Litorans. Their bod­ies are liv­ing cords of steel wrapped round alloy bone and plat­ed in flaw­less sculp­tur­al porce­lain. Their eyes are irre­place­able net­works of sil­ver wire, fine as can­di­floss and sealed behind col­ored lens­es. Their brains, inac­ces­si­ble in cra­ni­ums of the hard­est met­al, are unknowns. 

Each ani­muncu­lus, with the excep­tion of those who remain with their crafts­man-father, begins its exis­tence a blank page, save for its appear­ance. They have no mem­o­ry nor knowl­edge, mere­ly a excep­tion­al and rapid abil­i­ty to learn which lasts through­out their first year. 

New ani­mun­culi are as absorp­tive as a child. They take to new skills with ease. As many are dis­cov­ered by cut­ters, ven­tur­ing nat­u­ral­ly becomes their first pur­suit. The strength and dura­bil­i­ty of their bod­ies makes them apt ven­tur­ing pro­fes­sion­als. Of course, this line of work is a haz­ardous one, whether one’s body is soft flesh or porce­lain. 

Heal­ing is no sim­ple mat­ter, to ani­mun­culi, despite their durable cores. While the struc­tures which attach porce­lain body seg­ments to steel sinew are eas­i­ly replic­a­ble, porce­lain is expen­sive, and replac­ing body plates is no sim­ple mat­ter to the ani­muncu­lus involved. While some rev­el in a flu­id­i­ty of form, most are loth to unwill­ing­ly alter their appear­ance. Ill-match­ing plates are often upset­ting. Well-matched plates require a rarely-skilled arti­san. As a result, most ani­mun­culi would soon­er repair their shat­ters and cracks with lead­ing, much like a repaired pot, than accept replace­ments.

To many ani­mun­culi, this irre­place­abil­i­ty instills a fear. While they begin their lives as flaw­less works of art, the vagaries of time and vio­lence show fast on their beau­ti­ful frames. No ani­muncu­lus is yet eleven years old, but the eldest among them already fear mor­tal­i­ty, decay, or worse: A long life of ugly decrepi­tude. Their lifes­pans are tru­ly uncer­tain. 

In answer to this fear, some have turned to anoth­er ques­tion: Their ori­gin. Many, long fled from Illa Cor­voy, have returned to that island to gain answers in the jun­gle’s heart. Many believe they are sent fresh out into the world that they might some day return. Many believe their return is a grand test: A test set by the enig­mat­ic, hid­den Father.

⁂

Notes

Ani­mun­culi are a rare crea­ture type in the Incunab­u­li sys­tem.