Skybound

The Horse Knight didn’t know when it became aware of itself as more than what it had once been. It did know several things: it knew it had existed for eight hundred twenty-three days, fifteen hours, and thirteen minutes. It knew it was to be the companion and toy and protector of the Girl, and it knew the Girl’s name was Katherine. Katherine called it the Horsey Knight, and she sat astride its back as they pranced around the border of the small patch of grass behind the Master’s house. This was all it had known, and all it had needed to know, for its entire existence.

It remembered everything, of course. A golem could not forget unless it was commanded to erase its own memories. It remembered that four hundred seven days ago, Katherine had not felt well, and they did not march around the grassy spot that day -- or for several days. Nor had they played the game with the empty cups and plates under the small gazebo. Four hundred and three days ago, they had resumed their standard routine, but now Katherine tired easily and the games and the marching never lasted quite so long. The Horse Knight spent more and more time standing quietly next to the bed, maintaining a silent vigil over the sleeping girl.

Three-hundred nineteen days ago, several angry men had shouted at Master, scaring Katherine’s mother. Mother had held Katherine close, while the Horse Knight sat between them and the door to the next room and the girl asked questions the golem did not know the answer to.

“What do they want, Momma?” the Girl asked.

“They think your daddy can heal them,” Mother responded sadly. “He told them he can’t, but they don’t believe him.”

The floor shook and something crashed in the other room as the Master shouted, followed by screams and distant footfalls as the strange men fled. “Don’t worry,” said Mother. “The guardian golems your father built will always protect this house.”

The door opened and the Master entered, his face drawn. He stepped around the Horse Knight, hugging his wife and daughter close. “Things are getting worse in the city,” he said with a quiet urgency. 

“But we can’t leave,” Mother protested. “Katherine won’t survive without the ambient mana of the city.”

“Administrator is almost complete. We’ve had a breakthrough with the new control matrix, but it means I’ll be working at the center for at least the next week…”

Ignoring her parents’ hushed argument, Katherine simply hugged the Horse Knight in silence.

Three hundred eleven days ago, the Master had come in the night, picking up the Horse Knight without waking Katherine. He had carried the golem downstairs to the workshop where it remembered the beginning of its existence, placing it on a worktable. On the other end of the worktable was an object the golem didn’t recognize: a set of interlocking rings closed within a cage of silvery metal.

“What are you doing!?” demanded Mother.

The Master remained silent a moment, regarding the golem. “Administrator has determined the guardian golems are all needed at the city perimeter. I’m upgrading Katherine’s toy.” He reached beyond the golem’s vision, and manipulated something on its back.

“But you are the Architect!” Mother insisted. “Surely, our house is important enough for a guardian?”

“Not according to the equations of the Administrator. It doesn’t think like we do; it doesn’t understand humans. My skills are necessary, and so I am called, but…” He paused, letting out a small grunt as something clicked near the golem’s spine. “It thinks you and Katherine less necessary for the city’s defense...less vital to protect.”

“Can’t you adjust its directives? Make it protect us?”

“Not anymore…”

The sudden silence confused the Horse Knight, as Mother backed away towards the stairs.

“What have you done?” she asked, her voice low and thick with emotion.

“What I thought was necessary to protect our daughter!” the Master declared, impassioned. “I made a mistake!”

“And now you want to make another one?” Mother demanded. “What are you doing to Horsey?”

The caged ring was the last object the Master picked up, and slowly, almost reverently, he slipped it into the golem’s back, just ahead of the padded saddle on which Katherine rode. With a final-sounding snap, he closed the panel, and words flickered to life:

Adaptive Determination Matrix initialized. Awaiting directives…

The Horse Knight knew the words, but did not know how it knew the words. "We made a mistake with the Administrator. We thought we could tell it everything it would need to know...all the decisions it would ever need to make. It’s clear now that we were wrong. So, so wrong.” The Master picked up the Horse Knight again, carrying it back upstairs. Worried, Mother fell in behind him. “We can’t cure the mana sickness,” he continued. “Nobody can. Katherine...isn’t going to get better, and people are just as sick, if not worse, out there. And we can’t evacuate, either; we’d never survive the beasts.”

“Then what are we to do?”

“I’m working with the Administrator to build a shield generator, to siphon the wild mana out of the city and power a shield to keep the monsters out. But I can’t protect you and Katherine while I’m working at the Core.”

Mother wrung her hands helplessly. “Why is this happening?” 

“The mana has been rising since Avalon fell. Nobody knows more than that,” said the Architect. “The monsters keep getting bigger, stronger. People mutate...children sicken. We’ve already seen violent attacks inside the city walls, and they’ll escalate into riots soon. Katherine needs a protector...one that the Administrator can’t co-opt. One not slaved to the city’s control beacon.”

“But--! If the Elders find out you have an independent golem, they’ll have you killed! And not even you know what the Administrator will do!”

“The Elders are already sick, just like everyone else. It won’t matter much longer, anyway.”

He went quiet as he opened Katherine’s door. The Master crossed the short distance to the bed, returning the Horse Knight to his normal place, in arm’s reach of the sleeping girl. Carefully, he knelt down.

“We made a mistake with the Administrator, giving it too many directives. We tried to define every eventuality, but that’s impossible.” The man’s voice was a whisper, and he looked from the golem to the girl, then back. “I give you one directive, and only one.”

“Daddy?” the girl said sleepily as he kissed her hair.

“Be her friend.”

Directive accepted. Starting Adaptive Determination Matrix.

Two hundred eighty-seven days ago, Katherine had a wonderful day. Feeling better than usual, she had played with the Horse Knight for several hours. The change in the golem itself had been slow, but Horsey had begun to move pre-emptively in anticipation of the girl’s requests. Squeals of happiness and proclamations of joy from the girl reinforced the golem’s drive to fulfill its directive.

Not all of the following days went as well for Katherine, but Horsey did its best to keep her entertained and happy. If she did not feel well enough to go outside, they would play in her room -- and occasionally, the rest of the house except for the Master’s downstairs workshop. They pranced, and had tea parties, and engaged in mock battles with cushions stolen from the furniture. Occasionally, the Horse Knight queried its matrix to check on its directive, but the Girl had no such crises.

Two hundred six days ago, the Horse Knight first sensed the Signal. The Master had been hard at work for weeks, rarely coming home for more than a single day as he and the Administrator built new towers around the outer edge of the city. The Signal beckoned all who heard it to fulfill their duty, but the Horse Knight already had a duty, and the Signal held no power over it.

It did over other golems, though, and they went about their assigned duties. Servitor golems repaired streets and walls and houses, and guardian golems patrolled the districts, weapons at the ready. Visitors, when they came, told Mother in hushed tones about attacks by monsters at the outer edges of the city. The Horse Knight wasn’t sure what ‘monsters’ were, but by the way Mother spoke about them, and the fact that Mother didn’t want Katherine to hear, they sounded bad. The golem agreed with Mother; it liked when Katherine was happy, and did not like when she was sad or afraid.

The golem no longer questioned how it knew the words and concepts that it knew, nor how it knew more and more as time passed. Things that made Katherine happy were good; things that did not were bad. This was enough, and the Horse Knight was content.

One hundred three days ago, Katherine played outside for the last time. Such days had become less frequent as the little girl became more ill, more easily tired. Horsey knew Mother was sick as well, but diligently hid that fact from the little girl. The girl still smiled, and laughed as the golem danced its way around her room with the clippity-clop of its metal hooves. It was not as good as the days of outside games and playing, but as long as its little girl smiled, it was enough for the golem.

Thirty-two days ago, Katherine had not gotten out of bed. Mother stopped going further than just the next room, changing sheets when needed and bringing the little girl broth and water. The Horse Knight didn’t move at all, remaining near the bed so the Girl could stroke its woven mane. Reports from the Signal told the golem that the state of the city was very grim: several parts of the outer city had been overrun by monsters, and the Administrator had begun retasking servitor golems to reinforce the city walls. 

The chimes that decorated the city’s towers, long a source of joy to the Girl, now gave mournful notes in the wind. Horsey knew it was bad because Katherine had been saddened by the change in the sound. She no longer asked for the windows to be left open so she could hear. The golem did not like this change.

Four days ago several strangers had come to the Master’s house, frightening Katherine and Mother.

“Where is the key?!” the lead man demanded, white knuckles clenched around the hilt of a blade. “Where did he hide it?!”

“There is no key!” Mother shouted back. She gave a desperate laugh. “It was his last folly, he said, the mistake that doomed us all--!”

The man yelled, cutting Mother off. “You lie! He would not have built it without a key!” He reached forward and grabbed Mother. The Girl screamed, clasping onto her legs. One of the man’s associates grabbed the Girl and shoved her away; she cried out when she hit the wall and slumped onto the bed.

The Horse Knight’s vision flashed red. Mother screamed; the silvery steel of the blade protruded from her back, stained an ugly crimson. 

As the man who had grabbed the Girl advanced towards the bed, new words flashed across the golem’s vision:

Threat Detected. Primary subject in danger.

Adaptive Determination Matrix active.

Safety Interlock Disengaged. Lethal force authorized.

The door was no longer large enough to allow the Horse Knight to pass through. It turned on the men, who had suddenly gone pale; instead of a happy clip-clop of hooves, the Horse Knight punched plate-sized divots into the stone floor. The men turned to flee, and the golem felt a surge of heat between its eyes as it gave chase. Suddenly, the door was big enough to allow it to pass, but it paid no mind to the splinters of wood and chips of stone that flew past it, skewering the man who had stabbed Mother with the burning horn that now projected from the gem set in its equine skull.

Once all the strange men had been pranced upon and no longer moved, or made any sounds, the Horse Knight returned to the doorway. It was now large again, and much larger than it had been a moment before. Katherine was no longer moving, and Mother lay halfway across the bed, blood covering the floor. Horsey nudged the Girl’s hand with its nose, once again unsure what to do. It stood, and waited, standing guard.

It stood its vigil for days, until it noticed a change in the Signal. A strange pulse shook the city, and through the window of Katherine’s room the Horse Knight saw a faint blue light rise up from the distant walls. The barrier went up, and as it formed a dome over the city, the wind stilled.

The City of Song fell silent.

The Horse Knight stood where it was for many days, where Mother had fallen next to the Girl. One thousand, three hundred seventy days later, it entered combat mode once again -- this time, to fend off servitor golems dispatched by the Administrator to reclaim the materials from the Master’s house. It knew they were coming; they were sent by the Signal. The Signal had also asked the Horse Knight things, and while it understood the protocols and that it was expected to answer, it chose not to. Every hundredth day, more servitors were sent.

Every hundredth day, more servitors were repelled. The Horse Knight answered no queries.

One hundred thousand days later, the Administrator stopped sending servitors. The rest of the city had been built up around the small rectangle of land with the quaint little house and patch of grass with the small gazebo in the back. Golems wandered the streets, repairing empty shops and repaving roads upon which nobody travelled. Parks were immaculately maintained, for the enjoyment of a populace long since departed. Trees and gardens were tended to, aqueducts and fountains were maintained, and benches dotted walkways that lay forever silent under the quiet ministrations of its mindless custodians.

The Horse Knight stood vigil over bones.

Three hundred thousand, four hundred seventy-three days later, something changed. The Signal grew agitated, and the factory complex at the city’s heart rumbled to life, disgorging guardian after guardian, followed by excavation machinery, transport golems, and designs the Horse Knight had never heard of. The City was going to war, and the Signal called all who could hear it to the western gate.

The Horse Knight stood vigil over bones.

Three hundred thousand, nine hundred six days later, the war came to the city. Humans not unlike the Master, flying on giant reptiles, assaulted the city. They died by the thousands, but the blue dome protecting the city fell. Still more came, and after a long time, their mounts finally poured enough flame into the factory that the production lines shuddered, heaved, and fell silent.

The barrier was restored, and the walls repaired -- but something had gone wrong. The flying men stayed away, but the damage had been done, and the Signal was no longer as solid and sure as it had been, as if the assault had weakened it. The information was unreliable, unpredictable, and the city’s golems grew less coordinated.

The Horse Knight stood vigil over bones.

Three hundred fifty-one thousand, two hundred days later, the Signal finally ceased. Golems still wandered the city, but aimlessly, purposelessly. No more came from the Core to replace the ones lost to age or, as grew more common, clashes with each other. The Horse Knight had to defend the Master’s house more frequently, guarding the Girl, from living things more often than other golems.

Four hundred one thousand, six hundred seventy-three days later, something new happened. The Horse Knight detected the Signal once again, much fainter than before -- but it stood out from the background so starkly it may as well have been a shout. The golem stepped up onto the sole remaining section of wall that still stood, what had once been the Girl’s bedroom wall, in an attempt to hear it better.

“...is Dana...hear me, Morgan?”

The Horse Knight could just barely detect an answering Signal, but it wasn’t strong enough to make out.

“...had to launch…storm, but we….zero vis…”

“...can’t go above...tals attack if we...too high...head south, but we don’t want...a mountain…”

The Horse Knight had stood vigil over bones for hundreds of thousands of days. It had never stopped attempting to fulfill the directive given to it so long ago, but it had never considered it complete. This new Signal...it spoke as both the Administrator and the Master had.

Perhaps this new Signal knew what the Horse Knight did not.

For the first time in hundreds of thousands of days, the Horse Knight made a decision. The gem set between its eyes glowed.

With a rush of mana, the Horse Knight reached for the Signal.

Ping!