A great map com­mand­ed the room. A grid­ded realm of can­vas and ink stretched over con­ti­nen­tal fur­ni­ture.

Mice in sus­penders and shirt­sleeves scur­ried, fur­ry titans on the land­scape, clutch­ing up and set­ting down pins, minia­tures, and labels. They bore inkpots, pens, fine brush­es; del­i­cate­ly alter­ing the sur­face of the paint­ed land. Beady eyes peered through thick spec­ta­cles, intent. Ash drib­bled from cig­a­rettes lodged in rodent jaws. Ears and whiskers twitched, con­cen­trat­ing. All in qui­et, save a few gos­sip­ful mut­ters and the brush of foot­pads on can­vas.

Some­one spoke up. The mice perked their pink ears. 

“Report: Expe­di­tion to Cair­collin amend­ed. Expunge,” said a woman with pile of pink tele­type slips in hand. * She passed the slip to a clerk.

A mouse rushed to com­ply, snatched a label from the rel­e­vant grid-point. “Done, Smithers.”

Smithers nod­ded. She drew anoth­er tele­type. The ink, fresh, smudged her fin­gers. “Prospec­tive yield in Draum has risen again. Amend, plus three mil­lion.”

Anoth­er mouse rushed to the con­ti­nent-table’s edge, removed a ledger from shelves neath its lip. He rifled through, adjust­ed a fig­ure, skit­tered to plant a new counter on an inked fron­tier town.

Near­by, in the rose-pan­eled wall, a door clicked brusque­ly open. Hard-toe flats passed through. 

“Mas­ter Smithers. Updates from the cashiers,” read a spec­ta­cled woman from a clip­board. “The esti­mate from this morn­ing’s return from Lee­land Haunt is cor­rect­ed to five thou­sand, and they are still de-gild­ing the walls.” **

“Thank you,” said Smithers, point­ing to a mouse, who nod­ded, oblig­ed, cor­rect­ed yet anoth­er record.

“And the casu­al­ty rate was sev­en­ty per­cent, not eighty. A cut­ter pre­sumed miss­ing report­ed in, said the oth­ers tossed him off a bridge on the way back in hopes their shares would increase.”

The table of mice chuck­led. Smithers shook her head, dis­ap­prov­ing. “Ani­mals. Dock their ben­e­fits.”

“Of course.” She depart­ed.

At the table, a brown mouse stood. She buffed ink from her clawed paws with a rag. “Any chance of an update from the San­se­vie Raid?”

“Afraid not, Tiff. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions are still down after the break­out.”

“Shame. We are enjoy­ing fol­low­ing that,” said Tiff. The oth­ers, noses bent to work, nod­ded.

The door opened again. A beard­ed man swung through, pant­i­ng. His tie was askew. He held a scrap of type­writ­ten paper. “A tele’ from Som­m­er­sault Con­sor­tium,” he heaved. “From the Yawn of Auld expe­di­tion.” Smithers and the mice looked up with inter­est.

“Go on. And do breathe, Wilkins,” said Smithers.

Wilkins gulped. “The cut­ters have with­drawn. They encoun­tered an eidolon in the first hall.”

The mice began gos­sip­ing hot­ly. Whiskers twitched, excit­ed­ly ablur. “Casu­al­ties?” squeaked one. Smithers glared at them, resigned­ly at the beard­ed man.

“Six­ty per­cent.”

The mice cringed. “Damn,” mum­bled Smithers.

“They request imme­di­ate rein­force­ment,” said Wilkins. “The Firm has heavy infantry on retain­er near­by.” †

Smithers curled her lip, frowned. “No need for that.”

Wilkins gaped at her. “It tore them apart, Mas­ter, and they were Stand­ing Four.”

“If it’s an eidolon, Wilkins, it’s prob­a­bly been there two mil­len­nia. It’s not going to leave, now.” She turned to the mice. “Do we have any known errants, near­by?”

The mice scrab­bled, opened a half-dozen ledgers. “One put up in Som­m­er­sault town. A Sir Cour­te­bank,” squeaked one. “And a Sir Hewn, of Tort is in Coun­ty Per­secht, with squires. Very good stand­ing.”

Wilkins frowned. “A knight errant? Is that an appro­pri­ate thing to do?”

Smithers drew a thin squint of a smile. “Wilkins, I real­ize you are new to the Firm,” she said. “But there are tra­di­tions to be upheld, for the sake of respect.” The mice at the map-table all nod­ded. “To kill a knight, you must use a knight.”

Smithers snapped her ledger shut. “It is the most appro­pri­ate thing to do.”

A grat­ing of steel shiv­ered through the halls. Rasp­ing, spark­ing. Steel against stone, bounc­ing off molder­ing grey walls and vault­ed ceil­ings, around occlud­ed cor­ners sconced with skull-faced stat­u­ary. The sole sound in bleak pas­sages, save the crunch of boot­nails on ancient tile.

Three pairs of boot­nails. Three walk­ers down the high, dark cor­ri­dors. Two were squires; armored, laden with packs. One of them held a lantern. The oth­er: A broad, rec­tan­gu­lar shield, thick­ly pit­ted, too large for his frame. They kept close behind a tow­er­ing third. 

He, their charge, ground cracks into the tile with every steel-shod step. A tow­er­ing man, queer­ly long of trunk and limb, clad com­plete­ly in inter­lock­ing, scal­loped steel. His every move hissed, whirred soft­ly, dri­ven by the cowled mass of hydraulic arms hid­den close, con­nect­ed to his broad back and every armored appendage. In the hinged elbow of one arm, he couched a plain helm of forged plate and steel mesh. Large, met­al fin­ger­tips ground into the dome, ner­vous.

“It’s close,” he said.

“The sound?” said one squire, behind. She peered round the gigan­tic shield­’s bur­den, ear turned to the grat­ing echo.

“The eidolon,” nod­ded the Knight. Ahead, just vis­i­ble in the lamp­light, showed stained lumps strewn over and against the floor and wall. Some dozen corpses, blotchy with fresh rot.

“Oh,” star­tled the lantern-bear­er. He jumped, caused weird shad­ows to writhe over the walls.

“Plague?” said the oth­er, breath­less. The two poised ner­vous­ly. 

“I would wager not,” said the knight, keep­ing on. “These cut­ters had stand­ing. Could afford their salt.” He sneered, grim­ly. “In too many pieces to live again, any­way.”

Only a few meters far­ther down, there showed an arch­way. Chipped, flanked by car­ven, cracked stat­ues of death. Past it came the grat­ing. “This’ll be it. See that?” said the Knight, point­ing above the arch. A stone plate was graven there, writ­ten in ancient speak and near-inde­ci­pher­able. One squire squint­ed, read the words aloud.

“Things to be for­got­ten;
Place to be for­got­ten.”

“The litany?” she said, frown­ing. †† “That’s meant to come at the begin­ning. How can this only now be the mouth of the tomb, after so far?”

The Knight shook his head. “Can say nei­ther why, nor whom built it this way.” He extend­ed a free hand to his shield­bear­er. “We have but one pur­pose here.”

Word­less, the atten­dants set to work on their iron­clad mas­ter. They slid his shield, oiled, into its T-shaped mount upon his fore­arm plate. It took fast, but­tressed by rein­forc­ing spokes up to the shoul­der. They set and rotat­ed the helm, locked it into its armored neck ring. Its mesh eyes peered only just above a great, band­ed alloy gor­get. They dis­en­gaged and care­ful­ly with­drew a maincoil—a cake-tin sized round hous­ing, whis­per­ing with the con­tained ener­gy of a hun­dred meters of vibrat­ing alloy hairspring—from the man’s steel back, replaced it with a fresh sur­ro­gate. Then, they prof­fered the ham­mer.

This weapon, a meter and more long and cru­el­ly beaked, the knight took up him­self; locked it fast in the chain­maille pad of his paw. Steel scraped against knurled steel as he gripped it, breath­ing slow, hel­met bowed. Lis­ten­ing.

From beyond the dark arch, the grat­ing still came. Short, close. The Knight looked up.  

“Put the flares in quick, after me,” said he, hol­low with­in his steel casque. He stretched, rolled his shoul­ders. The armor com­plied, pli­able, pro­duced a cho­rus of small clicks and pres­sur­ized squeaks as plates and pis­tons ground over and with­in each oth­er.

“Aye.”

“Wish me well,” he said, breath­less with sud­den ener­gy.

“As ever,” said the shield­bear­er. Her fel­low nod­ded, smiled grim­ly. The Knight nod­ded. With lop­ing strides, impos­si­bly light, he made for the arch and ducked beneath. Dark­ness sur­round­ed him.

A pair of stars arced in from behind him: Flares, bright white and near-smoke­less, tossed by the squires. What they revealed gave the Knight pause. An open plain of pil­lars on grey stone. Bleak, unadorned, shed­ding shad­ows like trees into the immense black beyond the flare’s light. And midst them, a rough mar­ble throne with three corpses slumped at its side.

Upon it sat the eidolon. A crea­ture of wrought iron, plat­ed all over and stud­ded thick­ly with dec­o­ra­tive riv­ets. Human­like, queer­ly elon­gat­ed. It hunched where it sat, knees high­er than shoul­ders, long neck bowed to where spi­der-hands worked an oblong whet­stone over two meters of gleam­ing steel. With every strop, the stone, wet with some red oil, ripped a grat­ing note from the cru­ci­form blade.

At this sight, the Knight paused, gripped his ham­mer. A breath caught in his throat.

The eidolon’s flat-topped, frog-mouth hel­met turned to face the sound. No eyes showed in the long, tall face­plate. Only two cone­like div­ots for ears. A crack and a clat­ter of stone echoed under the pil­lars as it released the whet­stone. Then, a breath. A long, drawn-out pull through dry tubes of flesh. And as it inhaled, it stood. A hun­dred lay­ered plates of iron clinked and slid on the wil­lowy limbs of that pro­tract­ed form. It stood like an iron lamp­post, cast­ing a spare sil­hou­ettes in the blar­ing flare­light. 

Dwarfed by a meter or more, the Knight swal­lowed, straight­ened.

“Eido­lus,” he pro­nounced, voice too-qui­et with­in the helm. “Fratrem in fer­ro,” loud­er. He lift­ed his ham­mer, point­ed it at the iron guardian’s sword. “Per­form for me the task for which we were made.”

The eidolon nod­ded. Slow, it approached, blade lax at its side. The Knight raised his shield to match, bent at the knees, on guard. His every move elicit­ed a series of mechan­i­cal retorts.

“On your guard,” declared the Knight.

 The eidolon kept on, head cocked.

“On your–” he yelped. The eidolon swiped at him, fast. A stab, hooked so far round from the right it would have con­nect­ed, save the shield­’s right cor­ner, where a gouge now showed in the steel slab. The Knight’s heels crunched into stone, dri­ven down and back by the weight of the blow.

With­out pause, the eidolon pulled its huge blade into both hands and struck again, over­head, down at the Knight’s back with the point. Pis­tons spat and groaned, jerked to lift the shield and absorb the blow. Hinged knees buck­led, moment­ly, as he blocked the blow. 

This exchange pro­ceed­ed a half score times again. The eidolon, tow­er­ing, whipped its great weight of steel thought the stale air with casu­al ease. The Knight, hud­dled under his bat­tered slab, groaned. In the vio­lence, black and sil­ver steel glim­mered, swam with count­less pin­pricks. The flares’ stark starlight.

Anoth­er swing. This time, the Knight, already crouched, leapt aside. Steel ripped through the space he’d occu­pied, came back around too late. The eidolon, legs locked, could not dodge the beak of steel which punched greed­i­ly through a plate above its hip.

The wrought-iron crea­ture stag­gered, but only briefly, right­ing itself. The ham­mer­head ground free, pulled with it an arc of dark ichor smelling of putrid almonds. It stood hasti­ly, sword fend­ing, before the pant­i­ng Knight. Pur­ple-red gore and a wash of some clear oil trick­led from neath its plates. 

They stood a moment, silent. From the arch­way, there sound­ed small, des­per­ate cries of encour­age­ment. The Knight heaved, gasped, grinned at the squire’s words. With every breath, with every move­ment, his armor whirred, clicked. He straight­ened.

The eidolon began to cir­cle fast around him, thin, legs cross­ing over each oth­er, long-toed saba­tons trac­ing arcs, sword still extend­ed. Dry breath rat­tled in its long, iron helm, cant­ed to lis­ten. 

Abrupt­ly, it feint­ed. The Knight jerked to par­ry, groaned as he real­ized the false move. He leapt back, crashed his heels into the tile, expect­ed a coun­ter­at­tack. His armor screamed with exer­tion. The eidolon’s head swiveled, fol­low­ing

It feint­ed again, viper­like. Again the Knight leapt, this time for­ward, retal­i­at­ing, but miss­ing. The eidolon sim­ply stepped back, seem­ing­ly unhin­dered by the man­gled plates and col­lapsed, gristly flesh of its hip.

“What are you doing?” gasped the Knight.

It swung again. The Knight coun­tered, but met air. The eidolon had pirou­et­ted. A rush of air and speed­ing steel rip­pled behind his back, inch­es close.

They still cir­cled. The eidolon’s head faced side­ways, ear to its oppo­nent. It feint­ed again. The Knight dodged, armor groan­ing and shriek­ing with pres­sure.

The eidolon stopped, and leapt a step back, sword limp.

“What?”

It stepped forth again, slow. “Are you lis­ten­ing?” said the knight, as it neared. “Lis­ten­ing to my armor?”

Still it came. The Knight remained in place. He scoffed. “Try­ing to lis­ten out a weak spot? Though you’d have some bet­ter trick than that!”

Before him, the eidolon jerked its sword up. The Knight struck as soon as it did, expect­ing a faint. It was­n’t a feint. 

The eidolon struck down, over­head. As the Knight’s ham­mer bit again into his foe, the eidolon’s great blade cracked deep into the mech­a­nisms of his back.

There was a shat­ter­ing of steel, a crack like a whip and a thun­der­bolt com­bined. Hun­dreds of yards of alloy hair­spring explod­ed, shat­tered and sin­u­ous, from their hous­ing in the Knight’s armor, tore chunks of steel plate, flesh, and mech­a­nism with­in them. The armored man was thrown up and into his foe, who swat­ted him limp from the air with a counter-swing. 

From the arch, the squires cried out in dis­may and watched as the wrought-iron giant bore down over their motion­less knight; his chest-plates now caved, his armor ruined. They watched as it seized him one-hand­ed by the helm, and, with shock, dragged him, limp and grind­ing to the arch. They scam­pered back, watched the eidolon deposit their charge with­in reach. At that, it stopped.

Slow, bleed­ing, the eidolon resumed its throne. Rasp­ing, bat­tered, it bowed its helm, set to wait­ing.

Wait­ing, to per­form again the task for which it was made.

Knights

There exist two kinds of knight in this world, and they are not eas­i­ly con­fused:

One owns a title. An hon­orif­ic. A mil­i­tary rank. A badge of office giv­en by his head of state. A reward for some act of ser­vice to crown and coun­try or in recog­ni­tion of a career well spent as a patri­ot. He is seen at vet­er­ans’ soci­ety halls, com­mit­tees, and board meet­ings. He is a mor­tal man. ‡

The oth­er owns a suit of armor. She is seen in mil­i­tary parades, gleam­ing head and shoul­ders above mus­tard-clad marines and escort­ed like a bat­tle­ship down the Rue du Tri­om­phe. She is seen at the Dauphin’s side, his advi­sor and pro­tec­tor from an ear­ly age, his only friend— and the only sole rea­son he is still alive. She is seen on the bat­tle­field, her brassy gleam sti­fled by gore and car­bon, tear­ing down the stake­walls of the Sep­a­ratist hold­out as men rush, cheer­ing, to the breech. She is a paragon of humankind.

The sec­ond is with whom we are concerned—a knight in the ancient sense: An armored paragon made larg­er than life by tra­di­tions mar­tial and chem­i­cal. Wrought by a life­time of sol­dier­ly prac­tice and tem­pered by obscure aug­men­ta­tion. A fig­ure famil­iar since the feu­dal era in the courts and par­lia­ment-hous­es of nations, lend­ing lead­ers the lev­el sure­ty and wis­dom of heir­loom strat­e­gy, and in war accom­pa­ny­ing fel­low sol­diers in bat­tle; an inspir­ing, dev­as­tat­ing van­guard. An avowed super­hu­man. A leg­endary fig­ure.

Despite the leg­end and the mys­tique, to be a knight in the mod­ern day is no parachro­nism; no tra­di­tion mis­placed in time. Knight­ly orders have bloomed in the mod­ern day, enhanced by sophis­ti­cat­ed arms, armor, and med­i­cines borne of the Indus­tri­al Enlight­en­ment.

Con­tem­po­rary knight­hood is defined by the iron­clad har­ness. An all-encom­pass­ing artic­u­lat­ed arma­ture worn like a cage around the tor­so and limbs. Its load-bear­ing hard­points per­mit sur­pass­ing thick­ness­es of armor steel and machine-woven bal­lis­tic chain to be lay­ered on the wear­er, cladding them in a quan­ti­ty of armor for­mer­ly bet­ter suit­ed to warhors­es than men at arms. In more recent exam­ples, iron­clad har­ness­es inte­grate hydraulic rods dri­ven by accu­mu­la­tors com­pressed by an immense odite alloy main­coil worn on the back, sim­i­lar to those used in gun­springs.

Con­tem­po­rary knights have pro­gressed vast­ly in tra­di­tion, too, well beyond the con­ser­v­a­tive, reli­gious, exis­ten­tial vows of old broth­er­hoods. ‡‡ Chival­rous doc­trines, based on hon­or, restraint, and the preser­va­tion of civ­i­liza­tion, have dimin­ished. They are now out­num­bered by mod­ern creeds encom­pass­ing the ever-broad­en­ing range of sociopo­lit­i­cal, philo­soph­i­cal, and eco­nom­ic ide­olo­gies that have bloomed since the Enlight­en­ment.

While some orders still serve fideli­tas et human­i­tas, many have diverged. Some knight­ly orders are now mere spe­cial mil­i­tary branch­es, divorced from ide­ol­o­gy entire­ly (such as Fir­lund’s K Unit.) Some are secre­tive mil­i­tants aligned with the direst fringe of a grow­ing theoc­ra­cy (the Order of the Black Lock, aligned with the Avethan See.) Some are famil­ial sol­diers, sworn only to a par­tic­u­lar blood­line and its impe­r­i­al inter­ests (le Cheva­liers Domainiens, who serve the Empress of Empereaux.) The most reduced in their chival­ry are raw cap­i­tal­ists, who lease their ser­vices to the high­est bid­der, usu­al­ly Coastal banks (the Valer­ian Free­lancers.)

Some thinkers fear the effect of dimin­ished chival­ry, sug­gest­ing that a mod­ern cheva­lier, divorced from his antique moral code, lacks an essen­tial mea­sure of chaste restraint. Restraint nec­es­sar­i­ly instilled in the mind along­side the chem­i­cal process­es enact­ed upon the body, by which a knight gains strength, stature, and dura­bil­i­ty. § Which make them a fear­some­ly potent actor if not direct­ed by a strict dog­ma. They argue that “knight­ly orders,” devoid of ideals, become mere cabals capa­ble of pro­duc­ing abom­inable cham­pi­ons.

Indeed, a knight­ly order is, at its core, less a coali­tion of war­riors bound by vows, and more an assem­blage of spe­cial­ists. More a lab­o­ra­to­ry than a monastery. What might be mis­tak­en for—or decep­tive­ly pre­sent­ed as—an assort­ment of elder knights, seneschals, and spir­i­tu­al advi­sors is in any giv­en order an assem­blage of prac­ti­tion­ers skilled in less roman­tic arts. The expect­ed armor­ers, bal­lis­tics spe­cial­ists, and scouts are there, yes, but more crit­i­cal­ly, there are doc­tors. Prac­ti­tion­ers learned in the strange process­es that grant knights their strength—in the abuse of human growth—and magi­cians vest­ed in the chem­i­cal and sur­gi­cal arts that have long accom­pa­nied knight­hood.

The chem­i­cal secrets of knight­hood are long pro­pa­gan­dized (if they are let to be known at all.) They are declared to be mar­vels of mod­ern sci­ence. They are not—they are sor­cery.

Eidola

Knight­hood’s ori­gins are secret, not just because they are guard­ed patents or pri­vate pro­ce­dures, but because they are sor­cery. Arti­fact-meth­ods. Relics reverse engi­neered from the corpses of all knights’ prog­en­i­tors.

Eidola. Death­less guardians in tombs and ancient places. Twist­ed knights of old, made strange and sin­gle-mind­ed by sor­cery and mil­len­nia-long post­ings at past ages’ for­bid­den gates and buried fast­ness­es. Crea­tures, pre­sum­ably once-human, made hor­rif­ic and durable for time immemo­r­i­al. They are the knights of old, with their steel skin, cor­ru­gat­ed veins, and mis­shapen frames. War-things from an ancient age, buried for all time. They are the true basis of mod­ern knight­hood.

For this hideous truth, the knight­ly codes of chival­ry were writ­ten. To sep­a­rate today’s knights in both thought and poten­tial action from the ter­ri­ble nature of their prog­en­i­tors. To clad and reas­sure them so pro­found­ly in their puri­ty and exem­plary human sta­tus as to enable them to face fel­low knights on the bat­tle­front, patri­ot­i­cal­ly jus­ti­fied by the coda, and to face their ancient broth­ers in sin­gle com­bat, assured of the oth­er’s inhu­man­i­ty. All with­out doubt.

Yet, with every pass­ing decade, with every knight made stronger and more inad­ver­tent­ly inhu­man than before, swollen by the secrets of ancient sor­cery extract­ed from fall­en eidola, one may see reform­ing the ter­rors of old. Glimpses of the mon­strous enforcers from a Dark Age, by whose pros­e­cu­tion the human pop­u­la­tions were repressed and reduced to chat­tel by rul­ing ser­pents and armored giants. And by which the con­querors of mil­len­nia ago removed their human­i­ty and brought them­selves up as armored sor­cer­er-kings. 

The codes of chival­ry no longer hold. Human knights come ever near­er the inhu­man­i­ty they were long fooled they lacked. Every improved decoc­tion, every mech­a­nized arma­ment, and every for­got­ten order of hon­or draws clos­er the day a knight sees in them­selves not as ser­vants, not as guardians, but as con­querors. Super­hu­mans, sub­ju­ga­tors. Kings.

notes

This arti­cle became a lit­tle big, for what amounts to an excuse for putting a boss at the begin­ning of the dun­geon.

This con­tains the great­est col­lec­tion of spi­der­links to oth­er arti­cles to date. It like­ly rep­re­sents the most inter­con­nect­ed piece of lore in the Incunab­u­li fic­tion.

This post was large­ly over­hauled in 2025 to re-fit the mod­ern, more devel­oped set­ting and to suit the new web­site.

Sir Hewn of Tort is an ana­gram from back when we did Patre­on, of one of Incunab­u­li’s gen­er­ous Patron’s names.