Writers of the Future, Volume 28 (32 page)

The soldiers at the gate fled at the sight of them. Small timekeeper golems monkey-scrambled through the bars and unlocked the gate. A few ghost-fists struck the crowd, but Ligish had organized the best-armored golems to form the front ranks. He asked the golems to fan out and surround the house. Soldiers fled the house. Ligish augmented his vision and caught a glimpse of Maul through a window. From the number of soldiers fleeing through the back gardens, Maul was alone or close to it.

“He must know he is finished,” Calvaria said. “To beat a bishop is one thing. To defy the Word of God is another.”

“Stay here,” Ligish said. “I want no bloodshed.” He strode through the house’s front doors. General Maul stood at the top of the stairs, his arm around Master Gray’s neck and a ghost-fist pistol pointed at the old man’s head. Ice water washed from Ligish’s compression cylinder throughout his whole body. Master Gray looked so fragile a breeze might turn him into dust and ash. There was no indication he knew where he was or what was happening to him. The cold was followed by sadness. Master Gray’s last intelligent act must have been to give Ligish his freedom.

“What kind of golem are you?” Maul said. There was no fear in his voice.

“I’m Master Gray’s servant,” Ligish said. “You saw me in another body. I’ve returned for Master Gray and Miss Anna.”

Calculation entered Maul’s eyes. “A diamond golem is more invulnerable than a titanium one. She’s locked herself in the ballroom. Make her come out or I’ll kill Gray.”

Though fear constricted the turning of his gears, Ligish kept his voice steady. “Haven’t you heard God’s voice? I’m free and you’re surrounded. What do you hope to achieve?”

Maul spat. “A few golems hear voices and think the world has changed. You’re a war golem. You’ve killed thousands of men without hesitation. If you were truly free, I’d be dead by now. I have her marriage contract. Tell her to come out with it signed. She can keep all her father’s wealth as long as you’re my possession. If she doesn’t agree, break down the doors and I’ll make her sign it.”

Maul’s finger flexed upon the trigger. Ligish didn’t doubt he’d fire. “I will convince her.”

Maul descended the stairs, the gun fixed to Master Gray’s temple. Ligish weighed up whether to attempt to snatch it. No. He was fast, but not that fast.

They walked to the ballroom. On the way, they passed three unconscious guards. “She has a honey tongue and a hard swing,” Maul said. “And she’s stolen a gun.” As they approached the hallway leading to the ballroom, Maul stopped. Overlooking the ballroom doors were high ventilation windows. Ligish spotted Anna aiming a rifle through the window. Before he could speak, she fired a ghost-fist at him. He accepted the blow on his chest.

“Miss Anna, it is Ligish,” he said. “You must surrender. The general has taken your father hostage.”

She raised her head above the window’s edge. “You’re not Ligish.”

“He’s promised he’ll not harm Master Gray or yourself if you do what he says.”

“If you were Ligish, you’d kill him to protect me.”

“Miss Anna, I cannot kill. Not anymore.” His piston heart clenched with emotion. “You know me as your loyal servant, but I was a war golem. I have killed too many.”

In the distance, he heard the sound of breaking glass and triumphant shouts. Calvaria mustn’t have been able to hold back his soldiers and the liberated golems.

Anna ducked behind the windowsill again. She spoke from behind the door. “You’ll have to break down the door to get me.”

He rested his forehead against the door. He did not dare imagine how Maul would make her sign the contract. “Miss Anna, how can I convince you I’m your loyal servant?”

“Leave.”

“I can’t. He’ll kill your father if you do not come out and sign his marriage contract.” She sobbed behind the door and he thought his heart piston would fall apart.

“That is not my father,” she said. “Not anymore. It would be a kindness for him to die.” He could tell by the tone of her voice she didn’t believe what she said. “I’m not talking to you anymore.”

He shouted her name a few times, his voice rattling the windows, but she did not respond. Maul walked into the room, pushing Master Gray in front of him with his pistol.

“She’s not responding?” Maul whispered, keeping an eye on the windows. “Break down the doors and disarm her.”

“Wait,” Ligish said. “Find me paper and a pencil.”

Maul frowned, but used his spare hand to reach into his breast pocket. He withdrew sheets of legalese and then a pencil. “On the back,” he said, “don’t spoil the contract.” With a glance, Ligish summarized the contents. Everything that had belonged to Master Gray, including Anna and himself, now belonged to Maul. With God’s word, the contract was invalid, but it did not seem to matter to Maul. “Five minutes,” Maul said.

Ligish scribbled a single question on the back of the first page. “What are the differences in the law between Dexter Trapezius and Dexter Glenohumeral?” He slid the page and the pencil under the door.

A second later, she returned the pencil and paper with a number of references to the laws of Dexter Trapezius and Dexter Glenohumeral. He wrote back. “You’re incorrect. The laws across both principalities are the same.” The door’s lock clicked and Ligish turned the handle.

“Oh, Liggy,” she said and hugged him. Tears ran down her face. The sounds of yells came closer.

“Sign the contract,” Maul said, thrusting the last piece of paper toward Anna. She pushed the contract away.

Signing the contract would not save Maul, but it would save Master Gray. “Sign it for me, Anna,” Ligish said. “Not for Maul, but for me and for your father.”

She signed the last page and threw the paper to the floor.

“Now you’re my possession,” Maul said. “And I can throw you away.”

He raised his pistol. Ligish moved to shield Master Gray, but Maul aimed at Anna instead. Time stretched and stopped as the ghost-fist hit Anna in the forehead. It passed into her skull and solidified. Anna fell boneless to the ground. Ligish rushed to her side, no thought in his head, and howled. Every single window shattered and Maul clapped his hands over his ears.

Behind Maul, a printing press golem lumbered through the doorway, taking masonry with it as it entered. “Golem, protect me,” Maul yelled. Ligish ignored him and cradled Anna. Her breathing was butterfly shallow and blood gushed from where the fist had hit.

The printing press golem reached for Maul. He fired a number of shots deep into the printing press, the ghost-fists lodging in its rotary drum. The golem slowed and smoke rose from its insides, but it still managed to grab Maul’s arms, breaking his gun hand with an audible snap. He dropped the gun. Maul didn’t scream or flinch, but instead freed his arms from the golem and scrambled away.

The printing golem’s legs had frozen. It waved its arms and spat curses at him. Maul moved toward the gun, but the entry of a dozen red-robed cathedral guards stopped his motion.

Ligish returned his attention to Anna, urging her to keep breathing. Maul screamed and Ligish glanced up. The cathedral guards were forcing him into the rotary press. Ligish looked away. There was a long, drawn-out scream and then silence.

Master Gray sat next to Ligish and took Anna’s hand. When he spoke, the words were nonsense, but his distress was palpable. Ligish closed his eyes and prayed to any one of the infinite number of Gods.

M
aster Gray died a week later. Thousands of mourners lined the streets as the funeral procession traveled from the Holy Corpus Cathedral back to the house. Ligish suspected most had come to see him rather than the funeral, but it did not matter. It was still a comfort to see the crowds.

Once he’d seen the coffin lowered into the garden soil, Ligish headed toward the ballroom. He opened the doors. As he’d requested, Bishop Calvaria stood by Anna’s bed. She’d not woken since she’d been shot and the doctors said she never would. There was nothing left inside her skull except for that which kept her heart pumping and lungs breathing.

Calvaria held an open wooden box in his hand. Inside the box were hundreds of tiny scraps of paper. On one side of each scrap were symbols and on the other, a number.

“These look like the commands given to a Golem’s soul,” Calvaria said.

Ligish walked to the automicroscope and sat in the chair, fixing his gaze on the mirror so that he could see what Calvaria was about to do. “Each piece of paper is numbered. Use the tweezers on the work bench to feed them into my soul.”

Ligish reached behind him and removed the locking pin. The back of his skull opened, revealing a desk and an empty chair. His soul no longer needed commands from a homunculus, though it would still accept them. There had been a surprising number of golems who kept their homunculi, preferring servitude to freedom.

Since Master Gray had died, he’d spent all his time remembering what he’d read in the infinite book, scrutinizing Master Gray’s notes and revising ancient books on creating homunculi.

“I’m making a new homunculus,” Ligish said. “One made from Anna. You once said a homunculus was an expression of its creator, like a poem or a sonnet, but since God’s word gave them freedom, this seems to be false. If unbound and free, homunculi are their creators in spirit and mind. I don’t know if my commands are correct, but if they are, I’ll make her homunculus autonomically.”

“And either they or their creators have died,” Calvaria said. “Both cannot live at once. This is not certain.”

Ligish spoke quietly. “Would you say Miss Anna is alive?”

Calvaria opened his mouth and shut it again. Ligish gestured for the bishop to start. With painstaking care, Calvaria inserted the scraps of paper into his soul.

Day faded into night as the sun sank in the West and God’s other hand raised the moon. He mixed Anna’s blood with rare chemicals and chanted strange phrases. When the sun had risen again, he’d created a tiny naked replica of Anna. He held her cupped in his hands and breathed a tiny plume of air into her lungs.

The homunculus coughed and shuddered into life. Anna stopped breathing and the color drained from her face. Ligish handed Calvaria the homunculus. Calvaria placed the homunculus into Ligish’s skull, closed the doors and inserted the locking pin. For a moment, nothing happened. Then he heard Anna’s voice whisper in his ears.

“Ligish? What happened?” she said, her voice confused.

“Do you remember what I said to you?” he said. “My last words in your bedroom?”

“No?” His hands flexed as Anna wrote commands, experimenting with the secret language known by all homunculi. She controlled his body now. It would be difficult operating one body between them, but they had her entire life to learn how to share and no one knew how long a free homunculus might live.

“I’ll do whatever you ask for eternity,” he said. “I’ll always be your servant, no matter who my master is.” With that, he walked out from the house and flew into the air. He had an entire world to show her.

My Name Is Angela

written by

Harry Lang

illustrated by

MAGO HUANG

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harry Lang was born in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back when Eisenhower was president and no one had visited space. One of his earliest memories is watching John Glenn being strapped into a Mercury capsule on TV; he has lived in the future ever since. Generous doses of
Star Trek,
Ray Bradbury and the rest of the usual suspects sparked a lifelong interest in science fiction.

Writing has long been part of a broad resume of artistic interests; decades of devoted effort have produced a truly impressive collection of rejections. It wasn’t until his first acceptance by the online publication
Bewildering Stories
that Harry realized he might not be crazy after all. “My Name Is Angela” is his first professional sale.

When not actually writing or attending to the myriad necessities of life here on Earth, Harry enjoys teaching creative writing to small groups of home-schooled students.

Harry graduated from Philadelphia College of Art with a BFA in painting in 1981. He is currently a review editor for
Bewildering Stories
. He lives in Prospect Park, Pennsylvania, with his brilliant wife and six brilliant kids and works as a technical designer for a gargantuan aerospace corporation.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

“I am lucky to exist in a world where magical things happen; it is a world of my own invention.” Mago Huang’s art is full of imagination and storytelling, and creating is the way she influences the world around her. In her junior year of high school, she won an honorable achievement award in the Nationwide Lucerne Art contest by painting a life-size musical cow. The finished artwork has been displayed in the Bellevue Art Museum and was in the city newspaper. By winning the contest, she gained the confidence to bring her art to the next level. She created little art pieces to donate to the families supported by the organization Voices of September 11th. She designed and painted with the intention of bringing art and hope into people’s lives. “I hope they know and feel that they and their struggles have not been forgotten,” she says.

She attends California College of the Arts studying illustration. There she is improving her technical and creative thinking skills. Her dream is to illustrate children’s books and art magazines or create illustrations people will see in their daily lives. She works quietly, yet with each stroke of the brush or pencil, she creates harmony, peace and interest that might bring some change to a world that is always in a rush. “If everyone spends a little time looking at a piece of art, they too can imagine a magical world.”