When Rudolfo returned to his tent, the metal man sat at the table, sifting through the pouch of tools and scrolls, and the man was gone. “Do you know enough?” Rudolfo asked. Isaak looked up. “Yes, Lord.” “Do you want to kill him yourself?” Isaak’s eyelids fluttered, his metal ears tilted and bent. He shook his head. “No, Lord.” Rudolfo nodded and shot Gregoric a look. Gregoric returned the nod grimly and left in silence. The bird had returned in less than an hour. His question had gone unanswered. Sethbert’s reply had been terse: Return to me the man you took. Surrender the servitor that destroyed Windwir. He’d had an hour to ponder the why. Ambition? Greed? Fear? The Androfrancines could have ruled the world with their magicks and mechanicals, yet they hid in their city, sent out their archeologists and scholars to dig and to learn, to understand the present through the past . . . and to protect that past for the future.
