Chapter 7: The Accuser
There is an odd thing that most people do not know about willed golems. A rogue golem, free to do as it chooses, is a better worker than a golem without life. A normal golem, cannot feel anything.
It has no hope.
It has no dreams.
It has no love.
It has no joy.
It has no will.
A rogue golem, sound of mind will find joy in working, in service, in aiding others. It is in their nature and such kindness comes easier to them than many of the races of Kigan. So did the Scholar of Scholars, Albiz Gnarg write about golems during the time he spend in G’ara the City of Rogue Golems in the hot southern lands of Erimael.
Albiz also wrote of the other kind of rogue golem, the ones that deserved their name, those that rebelled in blood and flame, and never stopped killing. The ones that envied those that created, and their envy turned to destruction. He saw that golems would tend towards extremes, due to their impaired will.
Aira did not have a will full of spite and anger.
Fram did not even have to ask, she wished to help her father in his grand effort, to aid the gnomes in their toil. So she did and Fram felt a shadow on his heart.
Her strength as a golem allowed her to lift great gears in either hand, and cart masses of stone and metal. With the power of the gnomes aiding her she lifted truly massive things. This was not the only thing she helped with. She learned the ways of brick-making and general masonry and how to forge all manner of machinery. The gnomes taught her gladly, and she took to it easily. They were even surprised when she would recover some lost method from her memory.
Under the direction of the gnomish mages, she learned how to assemble parts to form the magical clockworks that dwelt within the tower. There was no instruction that she could not follow and parts of blueprints that Fram found difficult to read, Aira could interpret with ease.
All of this almost overshadowed the reason Fram had wanted her in the first place; her transmuter.
She could take all the waste from the construction and putting it in the arcane device, it was transformed into solid magic crystals. These crystals were invaluable, giving energy to all the workers and allowing for greater feats of magic.
At first she worked constantly, even all during the deeper dark that divided Awarth’s dark shadowfilled days. At the urging of the gnomes, she took breaks when they did, in doing so they roped her into whatever games they played, she was awkward and did not understand the purpose of their actions, but slowly she also learned to have fun. Before working in Awarth’s deep dark night, she would listen with the other gnomes to the elder gnomes tell stories of Awarth and their Lord Fram Doolytter.
Then, one day as she worked, she began to sing. It was wild and uncontrolled, but her voice of crystal bells could not be contained, she sung for joy. Though she knew it not, song was a large part of her being, from song came the enchantment that granted her movement and functionality.
It also spoke of the care of whoever had sung to will Aira to move. Fram knew this, and was consumed with guilt. Her wordless melody was like icy claws on Fram’s heart, but he dared not ask her to stop, he could not bring himself to silence such a beauteous song to ease his own deceitful heart, so he told himself that the pain was worth having her loyalty. Though her selfless service also pained him.
The gnomes for their part had no inkling of their master’s troubles and to them the song gave them get more energy and before long they were joining their voices to Aira’s, adding words to her wondrous cries.
This all in mere months, but these events were not all that happened.
Many gnomes claimed to have seen a smoky shadow haunting the tower. What troubled them most was its painful mocking laughter. Most of the gnomes that came across this ghostly being said that they felt the shadow pull their deepest failures up, their worst lies and that the laughter got loudest at that point.
They quickly came up with a name for the being.
They called it the Accuser.
Fram knew what it really was. It was Bab-Lin’s unthinking curse. There was no mind at work. Fram checked Bab-Lin’s body and found to his horror that where he had stored it was filled with smoke. He had a hard time finding Bab-Lin but when he did Bab-Lin’s body was unchanged still stopped in time without a drop of colour. Fram hid him even deeper in the tower.
For a time, the apparition born of Bab-Lin did not appear.
Then the Accuser came again. This time it also haunted the construction site. It grew bolder, appearing before groups, scattering them with its laughter. Gnomes that met it would not come out of their homes, feeling so much shame that they dared not show their faces to others.
Aira watched for it this time in Awarth’s deep night. However, it would always flee from her presence. Fram, worried at what might happen if Aira met the apparition moved Bab-Lin’s body deeper still into the clocktower.
For a time, the apparition born of Bab-Lin did not appear.
This time the Accuser was seen throughout the city. A smoky shade, that you could not see if you tried to look closer, striding amid the spires of the gnomehomes. In its’ wake it left yet more mocking laughter and guilt ridden little gnomish hearts.
This time Aira confronted the Accuser. She stood before the smoking shade, darkness feeding on the light of her gleaming form. It did not flee from her this time.
“Why do you haunt us spirit” Aira asked, she could not analyse the spirit, but it seemed familiar to her.
The Accuser laughed.
-He lied to you- a cold voice smouldered from the spirit.
“What?” Aira asked, confused, “What are you?”
-Used like a tool- The Accuser’s mocking laughter echoed all around as it blew away.
Aira span around as she detected a hand on one of her shoulders. Fram had snuck up on her and the Accuser.
“Is something the matter my child” Fram asked, his red eyes gazing out from the spinning gears on his face.
Fram was afraid, he had seen Aira and Bab-Lin’s apparition speaking, but he did not know what it had said to her, or she to it.
“I… I met the Accuser, it told me that someone had lied to me, used me like a tool”
Aira although new to the ways of thinking and possessing the natural gullibility of willed golems, had some idea of what the spirit spoke of. She however, did not want to believe it. Fram had treated her so kindly after all, and there was the matter that he HAD gone to the glass mountain.
Fram looked away from her.
“Spirits say many things, often they have no bearing on the world, or are ramblings or lies. Best not to listen to them”
Fram was afraid, he would put Bab-Lin’s body even deeper, into a closed off pocket of space in the clock tower, surely that would stop it.
“If you say so, I will believe it” Aira replied with sincerity,
Fram began to leave to move the body, but he stopped. He fell to his knees and cried oils.
“I can’t do this.”
Aira was confused, but she went to his side wanting to comfort him.
“I wanted what is best for this city. These people, but I can’t do it, not like this”
He couldn’t bear it, her diligence, her loyality, her joy, her faith. He could not bear stealing them.
“What do you mean, what is wrong?” Aira asked.
Fram looked into her crystal eye.
“I have done you and your companion a grave injustice”
“This is related to the Accuser isn’t it?” Aira questioned, drawing back from Fram.
“Follow me” Fram pronounced dramatically and he strode to the clock-tower.
Aira followed, and Fram led her deeper and deeper into the bowels of the tower, past all kinds of clockwork and ornaments and rooms.
Finally they came to roiling smoke, the smoke seemed familiar to Aira, and she began to fear her thoughts as to what Fram had done were true, she also had an idea of why he had done it.
Fram strode onwards, the smoke offering no impairment to his eyes, such things were nothing to even the lowliest damyne. Aira followed him into the swirling smog, as soon as she had stepped in she heard Bab-Lin’s last laugh.
“The spell on Bab-Lin was not broken was it, Fram Doolytter” Aira said, putting the pieces together.
“It was not, I have done ill by lying” Fram answered.
“He never left this city of Talvharn, has he Lord of Turning Gears?” Aira said, putting the pieces together.
Aira could only see the dark silhouette of Fram before her, she had no way of knowing how he looked, indeed even if she did, it was not certain that even with the leaps she had made in developing her empathy that she would comprehend the sorrow and shame Fram now felt.
“He… he did not, I kept him here.”
They burst through the smoke. Standing before them was the skeletal figure Bab-Lin, devoid of all colour, arched back in frozen laughter, but venting from his eyes, nosehole and mouth was blackest fumes. He almost seemed like some demented piece of art, or some mad work of alchemy.
The smoke went up in a great funnel from Bab-lin, but it swirled some distance away from him. Unlike the rest of Bab-Lin’s time stopped body, the smoke still had its colour, such as it was.
Moving closer to him, Fram spoke to Aira.
“He found out that I am not your maker”
Aira had begun to suspect that was the reason Bab-Lin had run afoul of the Damyne, though she was not ready for the feeling that welled within the shadows inside her. The bitter feeling of betrayal.
“I wanted you to stay in my city, I knew with your abilities, my dream of this place would be realised far faster than I had planned. It was greed and selfishness. I put what I wanted ahead of your situation, I told myself lies to try to ease my heart, what kind of progress is it if it is at the cost of another’s progress? Can that really be called progress? I betrayed the trust you put in me from the moment I met you.”
Emotions and feelings that Aira had never felt before seeped out, they were far more subdued than what many a being would feel. What she felt above all else was conflicted. She had been deceived, tricked, and kept from her desires. However, as much as Fram had lied to her, she had learned enjoyment from the gnomes, and Aira could see the good of Fram’s dream.
It had brought joy to her working on the clock-tower.
It had brought sorrow to her that Bab-Lin had been frozen in time these past months.
She did not hate Fram. No, more she felt hurt. It was strange, to her a being with no sense of touch, to feel hurt. She did not like the feeling. It felt like a deep abyss had spawned in her shadowy heart.
“Yes. You betrayed me. You have hurt me.”
She did not mean to sound cold, but her voice cut like jagged ice.
“I do not expect forgiveness, I shall free Bab-Lin, and you two can resume your journey again. I am sorry I repaid your trust with lies”
Watery oil leaked from Frams eyes as he raised a hand to return Bab-Lin to the flow of time. His hand flashed crimson. A crimson clock appeared, but just as it did, the smoke swallowed it up.
Fram frowned, and tried again.
He ended up trying about twenty times before the reality that he had really messed up hit him.
A number of gnomes fainted as they heard the wretched wail of a man who knows what he has done, but is powerless to reverse it.
“It appears that you have failed to restore Bab-Lin” Aira commented with displeasure.
“Yes it does.”
“This is sub-optimal” Aira continued.
“Very much so”
“You didn’t expect this to happen did you?” Aira questioned, crossing her arms.
“No I did not”
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” Aira screamed, her voice like the shattering of glass, and likely capable of it too. She being a golem this was probably one of the most expressive displays she’d ever do.
“I DON’T KNOW” Fram wailed piteously, looking less like a powerful damyne that had won several prime elemental turnkeys and more like a young apprentice mage trying to explain to his mentor why there was milk everywhere and his cat’s shadow was buttered on some toast strapped to its’ back.
“Well, do something! Fix him!” Aira yelled.
Fram paced around Bab-Lin, shaking his head and blubbering while desperately trying to bring Bab-Lin back to the flow of time. Then all at once, he stopped blubbering, he spun on his heel and faced Aira with a huge and un-nervingly toothy grin on his face.
“Sing Aira, SING!” he said, almost jumping with joy.
Aira backed away, thinking Fram had cracked under the guilt.
“Now, calm down Fram, you were going to restore Bab-Lin, this is no time for song”
“No, no This is EXACTLY the time for song!” Fram’s cog eyes spun.
“Are you quite all right Fram, I’m sorry I was so hard on you, just restore Bab-Lin and cease this game”
“Game? I play no game! If you sing, Bab-Lin will surely return to the flow of time!” Fram spun about laughing.
Aira looked at Fram blankly, or at least, as blank as she ever looked, but with the intention of blankness this time too.
“What?”
“Core at your nature, is restoration, remembrance and return, if you were to sing, it could resonate with Bab-Lin and bring him back, song was involved in your creation after all”
There was silence for a time
“Oh, well why didn’t you say so sooner” Aira replied.
So did Aira sing. Her song what without any words, but filled with nostalgia. Fram felt himself drift back, he remembered of his quest for the turnkeys for the clocktower. He remembered simpler days, when he was a young imp, a mere servant of a master, not even a familiar.
“Ahh, Boskail…” Fram muttered, as memories he had lost for a long time came to him again.
The smoke receded as the sound of Aira’s crystalline voice echoed all around. As the smog lessened, so did colour begin to return to Bab-Lin’s form. Orange creeping back into his hard exoskeleton and then his clothes returning too.
He was still laughing when he returned to the flow of time, at the laughter Aira stopped singing.
“AHAHAHAH- oh I’m back.”
Bab-Lin looked at Aira then Fram, his usual smile on his face, the one he always had.
“Ah, I assume Aira found out then damyne” He said, smugness oozing from him.
“No, I told her”
“Hmm, so how long have I been out?” Bab-Lin questioned.
Aira answered “A few months Bab-Lin, are you ok? You seem to be taking this well”
“Well, for me, no time has past, one moment I was laughing the next I was before you and Doolytter here, but my I expected years, well done on not taking years by the way, better than I did really.” Bab-Lin Babbled.
Fram wasn’t sure what reaction he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t affability.
“So…” Bab-Lin continued “Have you told her what you learned of her makers yet?”
“Makers?” Aira responded in puzzlement
“I um… no well” Fram took a deep breath, still rattled by Bab-Lin’s pace.
“Your creation was not the work of one being Aira, it was two beings, working together in desperation. Both of them were aligned with the element of phantasm, one was a dark magician of some skill, the other however was an enchantress of unseasoned skill.”
Bab-Lin clapped his hands together, creating a most strange echoing sound due to his hollow body.
“Right, brilliant, an enchantress and a dark mage, just have to find them. Not like Awarth is full of enchantresses and dark magi.” Bab-Lin said sarcastically.
“It isn’t?” Aira responded despondently. Golems were not good with sarcasm, usually.
“It is” Bab-Lin flatly stated.
“But you said”
“It was a joke”
“Oh”
There was a moment of silence, as if they were solemnly standing over the metaphorical murdered body of the joke, wondering what to do with it.
Fram shoved the dead body under the carpet by breaking the silence.
“If I may, I may be able to give you some direction! Come, I shall outfit you both with supplies, the least I can do… considering what I’ve done to you”
They followed Fram out and through a maze of passages to where Udalwut was overseeing a large number gnomes in what seemed to be a temporary store-room. Gnomes dashed to and fro with all manner of mechanical brick-a-brac. Everything was organized into different disorganized piles.
“Udalwut, Lady Cyh’Aira and Bab-Lin here must leave for a journey, of which the length is not known to them or myself, I trust you can outfit them well”. Fram regally commanded, showing not a bit of his earlier panic and confusion.
Udalwut frowned at the sight of Bab-Lin.
“Well, I suppose they’ll be needing locusfinders or some method of navigation, my lord” Udalwut questioned, clearly hoping that it wouldn’t be the case.
“Is there a problem Udalwut?”
Udalwut could not meet his lord’s gaze.
“Well, we uh, kinda used up the last bunch of navigational stuff for parts in the tower, won’t be able to get anything until that merchant passes through here again… we don’t have anyone who knows how to make such things either”
Fram frowned.
“Ugh, I despise that merchant, he skins us alive, knowing that no other merchant has come. Well, this is a problem, we can hardly leave them without direction.”
He pondered the problem for a time, then spoke.
“Sir Bab-Lin, Lady Cyh’Aira, not far from here is a shadow city, imprisoned within this city is a shining bird of dark direction, I should be able to lead you anywhere it you wish to go, but be warned, it will attempt to betray you at least once. Be wary of the master of this shadow city. Now, if you wish you may stay here to wait the coming of the merchant if you prefer”
Aira glanced at Bab-Lin.
“I think we have stayed long enough, we shall try our fortune with this shadow city and its master.”
“Yes, of course” Fram paused, then reached into his chest, moving his hand about, he pulled out a strange spinning golden contraption, perhaps a bit like a child’s spinning top.
“I beg of you, take this with you, simply spin it up into the air and I will come to your aid.”
Bab-Lin was not the kind of man to ignore a gift just because it was coming from someone who had frozen him in time, he snatched it out of Fram’s hand. Having fought against Fram, he knew how useful it would be to have the damyne on call.
In sort order Udalwut had the supplies together, as Aira and Bab-Lin left, he cried out to Aira.
“We will miss you, Aira!”
She paused, thoughts turning around in her shadows. Then without turning around she spoke.
“I’ll return, I think, after I’ve found the answers I seek”
“I am unworthy, but thank you” Fram said.
Udalwut just smiled.
“What, no fond fairwell for me?” Bab-Lin joked.
Udalwut laughed.
“I’m sure if you come back, someone will have forgotten that they shouldn’t play against you”
Bab-Lin laughed.
Aira and Bab-Lin slowly moved beyond the fond gazes of Fram Doolytter and the gnomes of Talvharn.