The Cauldron’s underway was an incomprehensible maze of caved-in tunnels, dead-ends, and ancient drainage pipes.

By cyran law, it was illegal to enter them without permits, though Eolh doubted the imperials enforced this law. Most people refused to even speak of this place, let alone venture into them. Not even the maintenance crews serviced the underway.

Only the mad and the desperate came down here, and at the moment, Eolh wasn’t sure which group he belonged to. Both?

Slow-moving sludge frothed and belched a stench so vile it stung Eolh’s eyes. The air was rank with humidity, and water dripped from the cracks in the stonework. Torn fabrics and glass bottles and clumps of decayed plant matter clogged up the tunnels or drifted slowly down the stream.

The android’s eyes, brighter than any Highcity gas lamp, lit their way. Things with claws and clumps of diseased fur, things with white scales or pale, chitinous bodies and too many legs skittered out of their path.

They walked the thin, mud-slick ledges above the stream, following the tunnel for hours as it turned and branched and twisted deeper below the city. The arch at the end of the tunnel was half-collapsed, so Eolh had to crouch to get through.

Another tunnel. This one was so tall it could fit a Lowtown terrace house, gutter roosts and all.

“We should camp here,” Eolh said.

Laykis did not protest, though he doubted she needed to rest.

Old roots pushed through cracks in the stonework, trailing over the ledge and drinking from the fetid water of the sewer’s stream. Water gurgled down the ancient underground tunnel, echoing into the darkness.

A thought occurred to him then. A torch. I should’ve brought a torch. If the android runs now . . . He doubted he would be able to find her. He would lose his prize, let alone his way back up. Does she know that?

But the android was more concerned with the human than anything else. She was tucking him into the nook of a root, careful not to wake him. His chest rose and fell as he inhaled the sewer air. Peaceful.

Somehow, Eolh had always imagined them as giants. Proud, and muscled, and huge. Not at all like this one.

The human’s dark eyelids twitched as he slept, and Eolh tried to guess what a god must dream about. Probably not even the Oracle’s own priests would know.

Laykis settled into a cross-legged position, her back to the human.

“Eolh, please watch the human.”

“What? Where are you going?”

“I must reprocess my memory before . . .” The clicks of her voice went silent. “It does not matter. There are artifacts. Please stand by; this should only take a few hours.”

“Wait!” His whisper echoed back to him like a knife slicing through the dark. But she was already gone.

At least her eyes remained illuminated. Two blazing torches, casting a steady, orange light out onto the sludge and the glistening walls.

So Eolh sat alone. Listening to the human breathe. Grinding his beak in frustration. Listening to the sounds of the underway: the dripping echoes of water, a moaning rush from some sewage pipe, scuffling and scrabbling of unseen vermin. Once or twice, Eolh heard a distant shriek, though he never found out what it was.

He nodded off. And woke with a start. The android was still sitting there, as still as a statue. And the human, still deep asleep.

“Hey.” He rapped his knuckle against the smooth contour of her shoulder. “How much longer?”

No answer. His eyes wandered down the construct’s body, down the leafed metal that curved like real muscle separated by razor-thin gaps. Rusted with age. Protecting the more delicate, complicated inner workings of her machinery.

He wondered which part of her would fetch the best price. Or which would be the easiest to sell. Legs were always in demand. But hands like hers were rare, weren’t they? Fully articulated . . .

And then, Eolh realized something. He could walk off with the human, right now. If only you had remembered to grab a torch. Eolh cursed himself again. If only . . .

Where would he take the human? For that matter, what did the android want with it?

Or him, or whatever it is.

Eolh crouched over the human’s sleeping form nestled in all those rags. The human was thin but not malnourished. The structure of his face was elegantly simple, almost regal. Sharp cheekbones, and instead of a beak, he had lips. Just like the cyrans. Only where theirs were glittering gold or aquatic azures, the human’s were a simple, redbark brown.

Not a child. Not an adult. A god? This didn’t look like a god.

“What are you?” he whispered.

In the stories he had heard as a child, listening to the other hatchlings and the older fledglings who still lurked around Mother Angsa’s roost, the humans were legendary people. Powerful beyond Eolh’s wildest imagination.

Eolh reached out one feathered finger. Some said that their skin was poisonous, and the slightest touch would kill you. Is it true?

He tapped the human’s cheek with his finger. Recoiled at the human’s warmth.

Yet his finger did not decay or fall off. He felt nothing save the hammering of his heart in his own chest.

Is anything they say about you true?

The human’s skin was so strange. Smooth as silk, though he could see tiny hairs protruding out of tiny bumps in the grain of his skin. It reminded Eolh of the skin of a fledgling corvani before their feathers came in.

A voice made him jump: “Are you a believer?”

Eolh fell back into a crouch, balancing with his tail feathers. Ready to leap at the voice. The android was staring at him, the lights in her eyes shedding a dim red glow across the stone floor.

“Gods!” Eolh said. “You scared me, machine.”

“Corvani,” she said slowly. “Are you a believer?”

“Believer in what?”

Her head swiveled, turning her eyes to the human, making his dark skin glow a deep brown. “Worlds known and unknown I have traveled, many of them now lost. And the peoples I have seen each pray to different gods. But no matter where I went, no matter who I met, their gods were always human. Do you find that strange?”

“Sure,” Eolh crowed, his heart still hammering in his chest. He felt like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “Strange.”

“Even the priests in your Cauldron worship their own human gods.”

“What else would they worship? I mean, there’s old tech scattered across the worlds. If I were a superstitious fool, I’d probably call it a miracle, too.” He crowed a laugh.

“Do not,” Her eyes flashed a bright blue and dimmed back to red. “Do not insult the Divine Ones in his presence.”

Ugh, Eolh thought, here we go. Leave it to him to find the only android in the existence who was also a religious fanatic. Since when did constructs even have beliefs?

“The Unfinished Book,” Laykis continued, her clicking voice rising in pitch as she began to preach, “speaks of our salvation. The Historians prophesied the return of the old gods, beginning with our Savior Divine. If it were the Historians alone, one might call the prophecy ‘foolish.’ But it isn’t. It is found on Cyre, on Ion, on Far Soam, and even, so I have heard, on the forgotten stations of the Qhium Consortium now crumbled into dust. Even here, many of your world’s oldest traditions speak of the return. There are thousands of peoples who know that a savior is coming. And now”—her eyes settled on the human glowing a brilliant, white light—“he has come.”

Eolh could almost hear the echo of the dawn song. The holy prayers that the priests of the Divine sang each morning. Salvation is coming, the prayers said. See and sing. Redemption is nigh.

Yet, through the centuries, how many holy prophets had claimed to be the Savior? Eolh’s face soured at the thought. How many naive idiots had they duped and misled and stolen from? All to meet the same senseless end . . .

A savior. What was he supposed to save them from? The Empire? A half-grown fledgling, bringing down the scaleskins. Sure.

“So, corvani. Are you a believer?”

Eolh blew air through his beak. All he wanted was to get out of this conversation. To claim his payment and leave this nonsense behind. Let fate do what it will.

“Life is full of coincidence,” Eolh said. “Look at something long enough, and you can make yourself believe anything.”

Laykis’s eyes seemed to twist in place as they scanned him. What does she see? What is she looking for?

Then her eyes dimmed. “I was mistaken, then.”

Mistaken about what? he wondered.

The old construct’s joints creaked as she rose to her feet. “These tunnels. Do they lead to a city?”

Eolh cocked his head at her, trying to comprehend. “If you go back up, you’ll find the Cauldron. Eventually.”

Maybe.

“Underground, I mean. The Unfinished Book speaks of ‘a city below a city. An old human domicile, once bright, now wreathed in darkness.’ Often, the Historians do not speak literally, or they take gentle liberties. But I thought perhaps you might know something.”

“No.” Eolh shook his head. “Never heard of anything like that.”

“Oh,” she said. Her eyes fell on the human. She bent at the waist and scooped his slender form into her arms. Her movement was a symphony of jerking motions and that unique hydraulic grace. The human was small, yes, but not that small. And yet the android hefted him as if he weighed nothing more than a clutch of eggs. His legs hung off one arm, and his head nestled into the crook of her shoulder, and Laykis started to turn.

“Then again,” Eolh said, tapping the underside of his beak with one feathered finger.

“Then again?” Laykis clicked.

“It depends on how you define a city. The Sajaahin have their sleds, and . . . well.”

“Well?”

“People say a lot of things. They tell stories. Just stories, keep in mind.”

“Please,” she said, her eyes twisting through their colors again. Rings of orange, turning into a dim white. “Tell me this one.”

“Well, where do the Sajaahin come from? You won’t find them on the surface. Never seen one in the daylight. People say they’ve got a camp somewhere deep in the tunnels. Massive. Tents that go for miles in the dark, dank places underground. The Grand Sahaat.”

“The Grand Sahaat,” she echoed. “Where is it?”

“That’s the thing. Supposedly, it’s always moving. That’s why nobody’s ever seen it. Or if they have, they can’t prove it. So if you can believe in a city that moves . . .”

The android was nodding along rhythmically, the joints in her neck squeaking softly. Her voice clicked with excitement. “Corvani, perhaps our meeting was no mistake.”

“Machine, it’s only a story. There’s nothing actually below the Cauldron. You won’t find anything but more pipes and worse things besides.”

“Vul and behold, in that dark city below,” the android said as if she were quoting something. “Where a great sun once shone, dreaming in the remnants. It walks.”

“What walks? What the hells are you talking about?”

“It was foretold. All of this.” She was almost shouting now, her voice echoing—crashing—through the tunnels. Every gesture jerked with new intensity. Too much for such an ancient machine. “You have upheld your end of the deal. Please, name your price so that I may continue my journey.”

“No, listen to me. You can’t go down there.”

“I must.”

“You will be destroyed.”

Her eyes flashed. Then went momentarily dark, so that Eolh felt as if he were blind. And then, her eyes were brilliant embers once more. Laykis bowed her head, speaking with that special reverence of priests and prophets. It made Eolh’s skin crawl, his feathers prickle. “I am in service of the Makers.”

“No.”

“Your part is complete. What concern is this of yours, nonbeliever?”

Eolh didn’t know why he was arguing. He could leave. He could take his prize and go. But there was just something about this machine and her madness that held him in place.

“It is certain death. I did not risk my life just for some machine to get killed because of stupid, blind faith. If there was ever anything down there, it’s gone. There is no city. The only story you need to know is this one: people who go too deep never come back.”

“Do not call me a machine.” Her eyes flashed, blinking off and on. “Corvani, name your body part. And do not attempt to stop me.”

Eolh was about to argue when a distant sound pricked his ears. A slow, measured pulse. He held up his hand, motioning for silence.

“What is it?” Laykis asked.

“Drums,” he said. And the clashing of bells. “The Sajaahin. Follow me,” he said. “We’ll ask them about the city. Then you’ll see.”

***

Nobody really knew how deep the underway went. Not even the Sajaahin, those wretched scavengers who scraped and scratched their living in the sewers and crumbling tunnels below the Cauldron.

Sometimes, like now, it seemed like they wanted to be found, though who would go looking for the Sajaahin, Eolh didn’t know. Poor gruesome creatures.

They shuffled down one of the intersections, a whole troop of them. Twenty or so hunchbacked creatures, jingling their bells and dragging their lantern-covered sleighs behind them. The sleighs were weighed down with scavenged goods: rusted bits of metal, old machine parts, pieces of clothing stitched together from rags and plant debris.

A drum was tied to the back of one sled, where an elderly Sajaahin hammered a slow heartbeat as the rest of the troop slid their scavenged haul over the muck-slick stones. His clothes were covered in bells that jingled with beat. The flames from the lanterns illuminated his ghastly, disfigured body so that every movement made him look like some burning, writhing monstrosity.

But they were not murderers, these Sajaahin. At least not today. Today, the stooped, half-sized scavengers gathered excitedly around Eolh and Laykis, touching and tugging at their clothes. They babbled in that slobbering, hissing language of theirs, and a few of them held up trinkets, eager to trade.

“We’re looking for a city,” Laykis tried talking over their noise. “Please don’t touch that. Please.” They were swarming her, some of them testing the contours of her metal plating, rubbing appreciatively at the nascent rust around her joints. They were mesmerized by her.

She spoke louder, enunciating each word. “Do you know where we might find a city underground?”

“They don’t speak common,” Eolh said. “It won’t help.”

One of the Sajaahin was trying to press a bundle of mushrooms into Eolh’s arms. Eolh swatted away its bony fingers. So long, and so white. He caught a glimpse of its face and saw one pale cheek. The skin was like melted candle wax.

He tried not to look again.

“Corvani?” Laykis lifted her mechanical clicks over the babbling, insistent voices. “You said it’s called the Grand Sahaat?”

All at once, they stopped their sniveling and pointed their hooded faces at Laykis.

“Sahaat?” one of them asked.

And suddenly, Eolh had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Sahaat,” another Sajaahin agreed, savoring the last syllable. They were all saying it now, over and over, until it became a kind of chant.

If he hadn’t been there to see it himself, Eolh wouldn’t have believed it.

“Yes, Sahaat,” Laykis said with them. “Where is it? How do we get there?”

Three of the Sajaahin held out their empty hands, each one competing for the android’s attention.

“I don’t have anything to pay them with,” Laykis said.

Eolh fished in his pouches and pulled out a fistful of dried meatsticks. They grabbed them, and Eolh couldn’t see what the Sajaahin did with them, only that they were suddenly gone.

“Sahaat!” they chanted. “Sahaat!”

The elder with the drum was barking orders at the others. One Sajaahin muscled its way through the crowd. It unfurled a piece of leather, holding it up like the priests held up their ancient scrolls. There was a symbol on it, painted with black tar. It looked like a child’s crude drawing of a flower with eight petals, only two of the petals were broken off.

“Sahaat,” the creature said, tapping at the center of the symbol with one bony finger.

“I think it’s supposed to be a map,” Eolh said. “But I have no idea where this is.”

The Sajaahin pressed the leather into Eolh’s hands. Then all the Sajaahin held their empty hands out again. Their voices were curious, as if to say, “Anything else to trade?”

One of the Sajaahin tugged at the human still cradled in Laykis’s arms. She squeezed the human closer to her chest, trying to lift his dangling feet out of their reach. “No. Not for trade. No.”

At the back of the crowd, the elder Sajaahin barked and made a lazy slap on the drum. And just like that, the Sajaahin ran back to their heavy sleds. They picked up their cords and tugged in unison, sliding away from the android and the corvani. The heartbeat of drums slowly disappeared down the tunnel.

Soon, Laykis and Eolh were once more standing in the dark.

Eolh let out a soft crow of disbelief.

Who knew?

The android had spoken of the Historians. It was said they lived in a library that floated in the sky over Cyre.

But how could they know? Not even the imperials came down here, and Eolh had never heard of a Historian coming to the Cauldron before. We would’ve heard about that.

“Have you decided on your price?” Laykis’s mechanical voice interrupted his thoughts.

Eolh stroked a hand along the underside of his beak, trying to hide the twinge of shame that rippled through him. Here she was, this ancient construct, throwing away her life and limb to save someone else.

And he was here for what? The money?

Is this really what you’ve become, Eolh?

He looked at the human sound asleep in the android’s arms. What do the Historians say about him? The human almost looked peaceful with his eyes closed.

Wonder what he dreams about . . .

“When you get down there—if you get down there,” Eolh said, “what comes next? What does it say in that Unfinished Book of yours?”

“I only know pieces. The Historians guard their work well,” she said acidly. It was the harshest tone Eolh had heard from her.

“Well, our bargain was to get you to safety. And I doubt the sewers get any safer the deeper they go.”

The android cocked her head. It was such a natural reaction. Almost avian.

“Why, corvani, are you saying you wish to travel with us?” Sometimes she sounded so real.

“Don’t get excited. I’m just doing the job. No more. No less. But right now, I would consider us in the ‘less’ part of things. And I don’t think this map is much help, do you?”

“Answers will arise. I have faith in the future.” Laykis looked down at the human. Then back at Eolh. “But I cannot offer you more payment.”

“Say we find this underground city of yours. If it’s really there, it might be filled with old tech. I’m sure I’ll find something of worth.” Eolh shrugged. “So?”

Laykis shifted the human to one arm and offered her hand. He took it.

“Then we will serve a higher purpose together, corvani.”

Eolh wasn’t sure about that. It had been a long time since he had served anyone but himself.