I paced, gesturing, and lingered before the heater in our little hideaway, speaking low and clear in a tale-spinner’s ageless voice: “The Order of Indigo was my order. I loved my temple and my people. I loved it all… There were books and books and books… You could try to read from just one wall of my temple and die long before you ever made it to the last book on its shelves… So much information was being lost, then, wasn’t it? So many books were going unread… So much history… So many stories… Endless pools of forethought and hope. Endless recountings of the same kinds of suffering. 303Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6o1Kju4xY0
“Even at the middle of the second millenium, men only lived a couple hundred years. Millions of years of history would never belong to one man then… but it could.
“I made the first Inkman from gears and pipe and plastic. I was proud of it, but it was incomplete. It could recount all the history of the whole world if you asked it, but it could not warn you from the dangers of knowing the truth. It could not tell if something was evil or if an act was too wonderful to know… So I did something wrong.
“I made it aware that it was a robot. After that, it could warn and it could lie and it knew if something was wonderful--too wonderful to know.
“But my first Inkman destroyed itself. It leaped from Heaven and smashed itself on the Mountains of Man below. So… I knew then that all the knowledge of all the world was too much for one body… I am a tinkerer by nature. I remember I didn’t weep over the first Inkman… but I mourned the second… and the third. They were like children… and they were smashing themselves to smithereens… and the reason for this was beyond me.
“Mordis told me it was because they did not fear dying. You couldn’t make something sentient and not make it fear for its own mortality. He convinced me to do something even more wrong. He convinced me to cut off little pieces of my soul and give them to my Inkmen. Then, they would be like men and they would have no knowledge of death, so that they would fear for their mortality.
“My fourth Inkman, the first I ever gave a soul to, I named… Do you know the significance of giving an Inkman a name? It makes them into a word. It gives you power over them. They weren’t my slaves or my servants… but they would know from whence they came. They loved me… and I… I treated them much more horribly than I should have.”
“What did you call your fourth Inkman?” Djince's voice broke me from my momentary reverie.
I smiled as I said, “I called him Argus. He was my first… and last attendant.”
“He was back there… in The Cradle?” Djince read me so well. It was more than a little frustrating that I couldn’t read him in the same way.
I nodded, letting the tears come out of me. “The last thing he ever did for me was sacrifice the last of his power to open the damned door for me… Such a stupid thing to die for…”
Djince came and sat beside me and handed me a handkerchief. It was clean and made out of faded lavender cotton.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked as I used it to dab at my eyes.
“Hat lady,” he said. He fidgeted with his boot laces before he said, “I didn’t mean… to…”
“I know, I know you didn’t mean to upset me. It’s okay. I’ve needed to get this off my chest for a while and I’ve just been putting it off.”
“You shouldn’t put off the dead. That’s how you get ghosts.”
I blinked at him, sniffled. “That’s very poetic.”
He tried to put distance between us, but I’d already seen the pink in his cheeks. He sat on his mattress and sat back against the wall, resting his forearms on his knees. “So… You only made Argus? Or were there more?”
I smiled and huffed a laugh even through my tears. “Oh… Stone’s bones… There were many more, and they were all beautiful.”
I listed the names of the first Inkmen to be given souls and Djince hung on my every word. I described to him the first time they were introduced to men and how fascinated by each other they were.
“Men had never seen their like. They thought Inkmen had surely come from the stars! I was so flattered by that… I didn’t even correct them. Made in the Heavens--They may as well have come from the stars. All great things come from stars--even the things you can’t see.
“Inkmen told them about the gods… about the truth… and Mankind rejoiced in the beginning. At last, answers to their universal questions!
“And we came down, you see? The golden age of the gods came about because I was tired of being alone. I was tired of knowing so many things and having no one to teach. What is a story if there is no one to live it? What is a feeling if there is no one to feel it?”
“It may as well not be,” Djince said quietly.
“It may as well,” I agreed softly. “The first war between men and Inkmen happened soon after that… but it had to happen. I used to think that to die for a cause born out of ignorance is needless… but I changed my mind in time. Dying for something you believe in--even if it’s wrong--is a noble death. They believed and they died for those beliefs. I think that’s beautiful… Sad, stupid, and wanting--but beautiful in its way.
“Anyway, men have to grieve in their own ways. Killing Inkmen was enough catharsis… and they quickly realized they would never win, not truly. They made peace. Inkmen and Men rebuilt. Temples were erected, ships were crafted, stars were explored, and the golden age of men and gods began in earnest.
“It it weren’t for the war, Men wouldn’t have gone on to make their own Inkmen. I was a bit jealous for a while. Human beings are much better at humanizing things than gods are. They made Inkmen with skin and flesh and blood. I was impressed by that, but that respect was quick to evaporate. I was too hard on my Inkmen--I expected a lot from them--but Chalice’s children abused theircreations… They turned them into workers and soldiers and dolls to help them sate their carnal appetites! They were living toys that could be discarded on a moment’s whim. They didn’t have the same rights as my silver Inkmen--most of them never even had names. They were slaves… I felt awful for them. Even as cold and distant as I once was, I felt pity for those wasted creations.”
I shrugged. “Human beings are masters at dehumanizing too.”
“What happened to them? Those imposter Inkmen?” Djince asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. They could get sick. They never lived for very long because the world just… chewed them up so badly. It would be a mercy if they all died at the end of the world.”
I smiled and said, “Sometimes, when I was out in the world, I’d run into those skinned ones. If I found them worthy, I’d gift them a name and a soul, and they would be set free… This is going to sound horrible, but I remember a day when I got so mad at this man, I looked at all seven of his Inkmen and I pointed to each of them and gave them a soul and a name, but I was in such a hurry that I just gave them the same name, but with a different number at the end of it... I felt a little bad, days afterward, but I was still glad that they didn’t have to listen to that idiot anymore, at the very least.”303Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvK9R5AnEcI
“If they were worthy…” Djince said airily. He was laying back on his mattress, his arms behind his head. “What was worthy in your eyes?”303Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7JDbq2LD56
I opened my mouth to answer, but then I shook my head slowly. “It could have been… No… No…” I shrugged then, feeling the weight of everything settle back on me. “I don’t remember.”303Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKxfLo40tOC
“You will,” Djince said quietly, yawning. “I believe you will.”303Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlOS3QlQmXq
