Chapter Text
“So it’s… an automaton?”
The thin, wide-eyed face of the emperor of all the elflands peered up at me, leaning back and forth to try and see behind my veils. I did my very best impression of an inanimate statue and fought the urge to jump out one of the magnificent stained-glass windows to escape. My “inanimate statue” act is impeccable – I’ve spent approximately 204 of the past 267 years of my horrifying and blasphemous false life perfecting it.
Currently, I was statue-ing in the center of a ring of presents about ten feet wide (the servants had been too terrified to get any closer than that), reviewing a Memory of the last stage play attended by my previous client (The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon: The Titan’s Lament). I’d been doing that for the last six hours, ever since I’d been unpacked from my shipping container, marched to the middle of a lavishly-decorated apartment, and told to Wait Upon The Pleasure Of His Serenity Edrahasivar VII.
“Serenity” The colorless and thin-faced secretary shuffled his tablets and pens, clearing his throat uncomfortably, “It is one of the guard-constructs of the late HER of the Tethimada. A Soldier Undying. We have only once before seen them within the walls of Eshoravee, but they are occasionally rented at great cost as bodyguards.”
I did a rapid search through my memories of the thin-faced outsiders that had come through Eshoravee, trying to match them to the smartly-dressed and impeccably-put-together elf secretary. Not as many as might be expected, mostly couriers with the occasional visiting noble, and no one that closely matched this one. I widened my search to account for significant shifts in appearance and social class, and finally happened upon a potential match: the Memory of a disheveled and bruised young courier from six years ago.
Well that guy had certainly taken a step up in life.
My new owner’s ears perked up in interest, and he took several steps towards me. I did not step back. I did not flinch. I did not shift uncomfortably, even when my new owner pulled the veil over my visor aside to stare at my viewing-lenses. In fact, I did not move at all. Again, my inanimate statue impression is peerless.
“We have heard stories of the Soldiers Undying. They seem too fantastical to be entirely true.” My new owner dropped the veil and stepped back (thank all gods). “Is there any truth to the rumors?”
The secretary looked even more deeply uncomfortable. “Our understanding is limited. Our encounters with the Soldiers Undying were brief and, as we explained to Your Serenity, unpleasant.” I suppose, from his point of view, it must have been. The secretary eyed one of the elvish guards. “Kiru Athmaza would have more knowledge in this area than us.”
The maza. I checked the enchantments woven throughout my organic meat-parts to animate them.
Standard.
I checked the enchantments that governed my movements and behavior, ensuring that I followed orders and acted as a Soldier Undying should.
Pristine.
I checked the enchantments that I had layered under those enchantments to let me watch over 10,000 hours of Memories of plays, operas, music, and books instead of staring straight ahead and awaiting orders like a good soldier.
If the Tethemada can’t spot them, she won’t be able to spot them either.
It’s fine.
I’m fine.
The fact that there is a Maza in the same room as me is fine.
Everything is fine.
The Maza guard, Kiru, stepped forward with a bow. “Serenity, the Soldiers Undying are a type of automaton, created to serve the highest echelon of the house Tethemada. They are far stronger and faster than any mortal, obey all orders without question or hesitation, and require neither food nor rest.” The disgust on her face deepened. “As Mer Aisava has said, they were made by the late HER using a technique that has since been lost. Little is known of the particulars, but it is known that an essential component is the heart of a loyal Tethemada soldier.”
That’s a lie. I’ve got a very nice brass pump circulating preservatives through my meat-parts. Some other parts of me probably came from the battlefield, so there’s a non-zero chance they were from a Tethemada soldier, but disloyal meat animates just as nicely as loyal meat. Could even be a mix – my left hand definitely didn’t match my right.
My new owner was looking alarmed now, “There’s a person in there?”
I checked my enchantments again.
“No, Serenity. The soldier is animated entirely by enchantments and clockwork – no trace of the spirit remains.”
I did not like Kiru. She was right, but I still did not like her.
“If no spirit resides within the armor, how is it able to follow orders? Does it understand speech?”
“As we understand it, there is a complex network of spells and clockwork that allows it to understand and obey orders, but no Mazei has ever been able to replicate HER work. To know more fully, it would need to be disassembled and investigated by both the clockmaker’s guild and the Athmaz’are.”
I really did not like Kiru.
“No no, our curiosity is not so profound as to risk destroying it.” Well that was. Novel. The emperor eyed me, a crease growing between his eyebrows. Hesitantly, he spoke. “Soldier Undying, do you understand speech?”
I had not been ordered to speak, so I put a fist to my chest and bowed in salute.
This turned out to be a mistake, as all four people in the room flinched and both guards stepped forward as if to defend my new owner against me, which was absurd. I could tear through them like cobwebs if I felt like it.
Which I didn’t. Slaughtering the emperor of all the elflands along with his nohecharei and secretary would cut into time that I could more productively spend watching The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.
There was a long silence as the guards eventually relaxed. My new owner cleared his throat and added on, “Are you capable of producing speech yourself?”
That was more direct, and further refusal to speak might be interpreted as a sign of personality (can’t have that). I certainly could speak if I felt like it, but the Tethimada had found the voices of the Soldiers Undying unnerving, and our diction to be disturbingly unnatural or uncannily person-like by turns. To that end, they had ordered us to use only our standard pre-recorded responses unless absolutely necessary. I played an excerpt from the standard description of my functions. “…in addition to its physical capabilities, this Soldier Undying can record and reproduce numerous hours of speech, sound, and even images”
“Is that… your voice? Are you male?”
No. Gross. Thank goodness genitalia was not one of the corpse-bits that SHE found necessary to include in my construction, and I had absolutely no interest in adopting any of the other indicators of elvish gender. I stitched a few clips together to form a response - thankfully I had a recording for gently declining the amorous attentions of deeply confused elves on hand.
“It includes a variety of standard recorded responses for your convenience.” “It will respond to any designation its owner ascribes to it” “…but its construction does not include any components necessary for romantic endeavors.”
My new owner looked absolutely mortified. SHE made a few attempts at automatons that could pass as elves, including spellwork to mimic arousal and all the relevant sexual organs. They were widely considered horrifying, possibly an affront against the gods, and had been quietly squirreled away into the hands of some deeply weird collectors after SHE died.
“Would you… be able to provide a full accounting of your capabilities? We are unfamiliar with the Soldiers Undying and would like to understand your purpose.”
Well, he’s in for it now. I started the “This automaton is a Soldier Undying…” recording from the beginning, and promptly went back to The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. The recording finally ran out a full ten minutes later, having listed all of my physical and magical abilities and reassured my new owner several times that I had no free will, and would follow any command he gave me, either direct or implied, without fail.
If possible, my new owner looked even more deeply uncomfortable than before. You and me both, buddy. “Mer Aisava, we understand that we cannot return this gift to the Tethimada, but surely they cannot expect that we will add it to our household guard?”
“It would be a great sign of favor toward the Tethimada to do so, and we believe that is precisely what they hope. It is a blatant attempt at undermining Your Serenity’s nohecharei and implies that they are insufficient or incompetent in their duties.”
There was a sudden uncomfortable shifting among the elves in the room as the emperor of all the elflands frowned, his dark eyebrows drawing together. Aisava quickly continued. “Unfortunately, this piece of the Tethimada’s gift is not as easily dealt with as the rest. The emperor has many parasols and many bed hangings, and it is easy to claim that a set of sharadancho silk bed hangings are simply not in use at any given moment or are too valuable for common use. Placing one of the great Soldiers Undying into indefinite storage will be seen as an insult.”
I imagined spending the next seventy years back in my shipping container, and then had to watch the scene where the stonemason’s son discovers that in fact his great calling in life is opera four times in a row to calm down.
“So we must find a task at which this soldier might work which neither places it, and by proxy the Tethimada, in a place of great honor, nor squanders it in a manner which they could claim is an insult.”
Which is how I ended up divested of my veils and guarding the entrance to the Untheileian during the winter ball.