The connections were nearly all soldered. The gear-work was flawless. Cawliss Corund was as much artist as technician. Equal parts electrical engineer, and mechanical sculptor. Nobody in Quayside could match his re-inventions from scrap and recycled parts scavenged from the wastes far beyond the walls of Hatra. He etched his mark on the inside of the mechanics near the wrist, though it was irrelevant. Everyone knew the real mark of his work was indelible quality.

I’m not sure, but I may be a genius, the delicate man thought. His long fingers bore nicks and callouses at the ends, but they were soft, careful hands. He placed the prosthetic arm on the shelf, awaiting the right soldier to test out the new connections. Every month or so a skirmish cost some young person an arm or a hand. No prosthetics in the city were more sought out than his. Every model is an improvement. This one is still not perfect, but it will be able to grasp with the flex of the bicep. He sighed, dreaming of a time when this work would be unnecessary, and a cascade of dark brown hair fell over his glasses. They fight. I fix.

If there was ever a person that should have been teaching advanced studies in mechanical engineering school it was Cawliss. But he had a daughter to care for. After his wife Hulia had been taken away by the ambassadors two and a half annums before, he was left with a smart, inquisitive daughter and nobody else to rely on. Every shred of paper Delianne could find with words on its surface was devoured by her mind, but what made her a challenge was the way she applied the knowledge. She had an innate sense of timing, her steps more a dance than most plodding sots would ever muster on their best day. Her words came out perfectly measured, symmetrical in their cadence.

Where is that girl? I sent her off an hour ago to pick up that package. A girl of barely ten annums was just getting to be a big help, but she was still a dreamer. She could jump quickly between ambiguous animosity that never quite elevated to a rage and effusive adoration combined with intellectual gymnastics. Delianne was a girl, after all. Cawliss headed out the front door of his tiny shop front at the East Junction. This confluence was one of the biggest junctions of cobblestone alleys and avenues lined with aging stone and stucco housing complexes in all of Hatra. The intersection was also the site of an enormous open-air market when the storms weren’t blowing sand in everyone’s eyes. He looked to the sky, noting that the sun had dipped, and noted the cooler air of the oncoming evening.

“Deli!” A woman’s voice rang out across the market junction. Caylene, the bread shop owner from a couple of doors down, waved toward the far side of the junction with a small sweetbread in her hand. “I’ve got a treat left for you, if you want it.” She smiled wide. “I’m sure you don’t want a treat, though, do you?” Her round face glowed orange in the late-day light, and showed off a gap where she missed a tooth.

Caylene is pretty, isn’t she? She loves my Delianne, too. I should invite her over and cook her a nice roast whallet with a Thatom honey-pea glaze and sopa hash for dinner. I’m getting pretty good at that, now, too.

Delianne skipped across the thirty-meter expanse, barely a quarter filled with carts, and took the bread. “Thank you, miss Caylene!” she said, then swirled around the open market space, dodging Cawliss’ neighboring shop keepers, and kicking up piles of dust into a fine, heavy cloud that settled quickly. As she danced and hummed, she took a nibble of the bread and ground her jaws back and forth like she was mashing it around instead of chewing. How is this girl so strong? Her mother is gone. She’s about to change into a woman, but I guess not knowing it yet helps. She is so happy, and I… I could learn a lot from her.

Delianne hop-slid to a stop near the center of the open area where three streets and four narrow, dusty, crowded alleyways met at odd angles. She stuffed the remaining bread into her pocket. Enormous housing units filled with thousands of families rose around the East Junction in every direction. This band of buildings stretched around the core of the city, ending against the cliffs on the north east and the canyon that led to the mines and pea-fields. Everyone just called them pods because the houses were built for efficiency, not comfort. It wasn’t a great place to raise a daughter, but it was a life and she was inside the walls where a varnok couldn’t tear her apart in a mis-adventurous moment. The outers is where it was hard to survive. The pods were alright.

The girl was standing still, breathing slowly. Oh Daeliss, I love that girl more than my own breath. So much like her mother. She stood with her slight, ten-year-old frame facing the south-east. It was a view Cawliss knew and loved well. She could steal a view of the long hulking buttes casting deep shadows in the distance to the south-east across the dusty plain. It was a beautiful sight. Cawliss stepped out toward her, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sunset with his daughter.

As he worked his way past the last closing carts and shoppers, he could hear her humming. It was getting loud, and intense. Cawliss noticed the dust vibrating on the ground in front of him as he walked. He glanced up and saw his baby girl lifting up on her toes as if she was being pulled upward. A swirl of dust spun around her feet, and the dust on the ground was forming a series of geometric, curling shapes. Like the swirls and hooks and lines on pillars, cornerstones, over doors, and nearly every statue throughout all of Hatra. At the will of Delianne’s song, the dust lined up.

A woman screamed behind him. Cawliss ran toward Delianne.

“The Song! Delianne has the Song!” Cawliss knew the voice. It was Caylene’s. No. Nonono. Not Caylene. Not her, too.

A cold flush ran through Cawliss’ body, as if his blood had drained directly into the ground through his feet as he ran to his daughter. He shivered as he reached her. She turned and looked at him with big eyes as if he was about to scold her. Cawliss scooped Delianne up into his arms, kicked wildly at a few of the shapes that had formed in the loose dust, and realized it was too late to hide anything.

Surrounding Cawliss and Delianne in little humps of dust were ancient glyphs and marks identical to those left by the architects of Hatra. Except these shapes in the dust appeared to vibrate and glow slightly in the waning light littered the ground across the entire East Junction.

They were everywhere. Delianne has the thaum in her. She is a singer.

Cawliss squeezed his daughter close and ran.

* * *

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