DargonZine

The Mocking Automaton of Dargon
By Jim Owens
gymfuzz@yahoo.com
Nober 11, 2018

“… And do be sure to dust this time,” Arbogast said, his voice ever so slightly chiding. “After grinding all that charcoal in here it is getting hard to read the labels on the bottles.” The old man shuffled through the papers on his desk once more, as if looking for something.

“Yes, your lordship,” replied Nessus with a slight bow. He was not entirely sure what rank his employer held in the somewhat fluid social order of the port town of Dragon, so far from the Capitol and King, but he knew Arbogast far out-ranked him, no matter how kindly he treated the middle-aged worker.

“And use caution when dusting the specimen bottles,” Arbogast said, picking up a handwritten sheaf and holding it up to the light. “Many of those are irreplaceable and would be ruined if you broke them.”

“Yes, your lordship,” replied Nessus with another bow, then glanced apprehensively at the indicated shelves with their obscene contents. Nessis had planned to skip that section; he found it deeply disturbing and wondered why it even existed. Now he had a direct order and could not avoid it. He swallowed hard. “I will be careful.”

“Good man,” replied Arbogast, brushing fragments of paper clippings off the embroidered fabric of his colorful jacket. The gesture caused tiny sparkles of lamplight to ripple across the hundreds of tiny gold beads threaded into the weave, just one more reminder of the man’s wealth and influence. He moved deliberately to the door, the papers tucked under his arm. He paused after opening the door, glancing at Nessis. “Do stop by the wine cellar before you turn in. My son brought in a new cask and I have instructed the stewart to share a glass with you. I am sure you will enjoy it.”

“Yes, sir,” Nessis replied, surprised gratitude coloring his words. As the door closed behind the lord of the manor, Nessis squared away his shoulders and set his jaw. If someone as powerful as Arbogast was willing to share such a special grace with someone as lowly as himself then he would do his best to serve as required.

Few people really knew Nessis, but those who did would admit that the last few months had brought a change to the man. The man who had been at best a petty grifter and often much worse had seemed to have found a new purpose and carriage. His hours had become more regular, and his speech less boastful. He had begun to spend more time on grooming himself and repairing his clothing, and had even managed to get up to the new bathhouse once a sennight to bathe. One or two of his companions may have assumed this was due to the new presence in his life of a love, a woman. This would not have been entirely untrue … as Nessis set about his work of dusting his thoughts often turned to her. The wiser and more observant of his companions, however, would have realized that this change had begun even before romance had bloomed in his life. In any case, Nessis was no longer just the aging con man who had been joined the household of Arbogast.

The storeroom of Arbogast was no warehouse, but it was nonetheless large, even for a man of Arbogast’s stature. The task of cleaning it, which was Nessis’ job this day, was time-consuming. Nessis knew his master, however, and focussed on the areas most likely to irk the lord of the house. First Nessis tidied the workbenches where the man’s latest crafts were being assembled. Then Nessis returned all the tools to their rightful places. He burned any scraps too small to use, and swept the slate floor free of debris. Only when a rough visual order was imposed on the working area did Nessis take up the feather duster and start down the many rows of shelves with their obscure and arcane contents.

The objects in Arbogast’s storeroom varied greatly in size, density, weight, and texture. Many of them were beautiful, such as the figurine of a nude young woman carved from pure white stone that sat on the third shelf of the second row. Some were probably very valuable, such as the row of golden crowns on the second shelf of the fourth row. Some were grotesque, like many of the preserved things in the specimen jars. Those simple glass containers, uniformly capped with wood and wax, haunted Nessis’ workday.

Animals, plants, and people were all represented, in whole or in part, in that sombre, uniform collection. Some things represented there did not bother Nessis, such as the display of animal and human skulls, or the flat boxes filled with pinned insects. Some were more disturbing, such as the bundle of dried private parts or the jars of mismatched eyeballs. Most of all Nessis hated the preserved human fetuses with their many deformities; two-headed, one-armed, inside out, or even just a torso. He had to force himself to slow down and be sure to clean each one carefully and appropriately.

Not everything in Arbogast’s trove bothered Nessis. One such object, standing near the specimen collection and covered with a thin linen sheet, fascinated Nessis. He slipped that sheet off now, shaking off the dust and laying it carefully aside. Underneath was revealed a carved wooden simulacrum of a human male. When Nessis had first seen it he had assumed it was a puppet, but he soon noticed the large box the figure was mounted on. One side of the box was open, revealing a mass of levers and wheels and gears. Nessis had asked about that, and Arbogast had shown him how to turn a recessed crank to spin a heavy wheel inside the box. Nessis did that now, his feather duster laying neglected on the floor. Once the wheel was spinning, Nessus mimicked what he had seen Arbogast doing, sliding a brass lever down to engage the gears. He then stepped back and watched.

The figure twitched, then the carved head lifted and turned to face Nessis. Or, at least, almost to face Nessis, who was standing a bit to the side. The eyes on the wooden face moved from side to side, and the stiff lips opened to reveal a set of painted teeth. The articulated arms lifted jerkily, fingers arching and waving. The legs lifted and shifted under a robe of simple homespun. The stiff lips closed and opened, closed and opened. At first there was no sound, but after a moment there came a muted hooting sound, like a student horn player trying out a new instrument. The pitch and duration of each hoot varied, and Nessis was impressed, as always, with how similar to actual speech the sound was. He could even make out a word here and there, such as “you” and “fortune” and “wisdom”. Nonetheless, the speech was effectively meaningless. Nessis laughed at the jerky movements of the arms and eyes. After a mene or so the automaton’s thrashing slowed and finally stopped. Nessis took the linen sheet and tossed it back over the figure, then picked up the feather duster.

The collection that bracketed the automaton consisted largely of various bottles of colored liquids. Nessis was just now learning to read, so their contents remained mysterious to him, but months of working in Arbogast’s household made him suspect that the rumors were true … Arbogast was a mage, a wielder of magic. Indeed, some of these bottles held marvelous fluids. Some seemed to move on their own, and one or two hid glimmers of random light. And some … well, they just sat there, inert, but it took serious mental discipline on the part of Nessis to force himself to remember that the bottles existed, and that they needed dusted. With one bottle he had to try three times.

It was beside one such bottle that Nessis noticed the small jar with the odd object inside. Nessis forced himself to care about it, staring up at the containers lined up on a high shelf. The jar seemed out of place, almost like it was hiding. Nessis used the handle of his duster to move it out from behind the larger bottle. It was a smallish jar, simple glass stoppered with a waxed wooden plug. Floating in the clear liquid was a lump of what looked like some sort of pale flesh, half-round and corrugated. Nessis frowned. It was a specimen jar.

Nessis looked over at the end of the row, past the automaton, to where the specimen jars were, then back to this one. Yes, it was a specimen jar. What was it doing over here? Nessis studied the collection of specimens, looking for an empty spot. He did not see one. Was anything missing? He did not think so. Nessis paused. Why was he looking at the specimens? What had he been doing? He looked at the automaton beside him, then back at the specimens, then at the duster in his hand. What had he been doing? He must have been dusting. He forced himself to review his steps, knowing that Arbogast was counting on him. Ah! The jar! He looked up and there it still was. He had to put it back.

Nessis reached up to take the renegade jar, but it was just out of reach. There were small stools scattered throughout the room, but it did not occur to him to stop and get one. Instead he just took the handle of his duster, slipped it behind the renegade jar and gave a poke; a poke that was just a bit too hard.

The result of Nessis’s impulsive actions was immediate. Both the small specimen jar and the concealing bottle flew off the shelf. Nessis was no spring chicken, but he had years of experience performing slight of hand, for reasons good and bad. He immediately moved to catch both jars, and would have succeeded if he had thought to drop the feather duster. Instead the handle of the duster deflected the jar into the glass, and Nessis fumbled both, tossing both into the air again. Instinctively he dropped the duster and tried another catch, but the duster fell across his hands and foiled the second attempt. Jar and bottle clanked together in mid-air, spun, danced, then smashed to the ground, spraying liquid and goo across the shelves, the floor, the automaton, and Nessis.

For a long moment Nessis just stood there in shock, dripping. He surveyed the scene; the broken glass, the seeping potion, the stained linen, the obscene bits of flesh desecrating the floor. Then his breath hitched and he slowly started to pant. Thoughts dire and horrible formed in his mind, images of infamy and ruin should his misstep be discovered. When his misstep was discovered, part of his mind corrected himself. When I admit to Arbogast I made a mistake and ask his forgiveness, that part of his mind corrected him. Nessis paused and looked at himself, metaphorically speaking. This was a new voice in his head, one he had really only started hearing recently. It was a more mature voice, a more honest voice. Nessis looked around at the mess, turning to see the bits of glass that had landed so far even behind him. Nessis was fairly sure that voice was trying to get him fired, or hanged.

“Oh, Nessis, Nessis, Nessis, …” he softly chided himself as he picked his way through the debris. “What have you done here? What have you done?” He forced himself to stop, and survey the area, and then deliberately begin picking up the larger fragments of glass off the floor. “What have you done this time? What have you done, Nessis?” His hands full of dripping shards of glass, Nessis carefully walked over to the dustbin in the work area and dropped the dangerous garbage in. He then lifted the dustbin and carried it over to the place where the jars had smashed and set it down. It bumped the box that housed the automaton, and the creature shuddered back to life just for a moment, one last bit of pent-up energy released. Nessis stared at the thing, startled, then began to clean. When he found the labels for the jars he carefully set them aside for future reference. After a few moments of cleaning his muttered litany began again.
“Oh, Nessis, Nessis, Nessis, …” he quietly repeated. “What have you done here? What have you done?”
“Oh, Nessis, Nessis, Nessis, why, what have you done?” Nessis stopped in mid-sweep, his broom stiff in his hands. Those words had not come from his lips. He looked to his right to see the automaton sitting erect, facing directly at him, the linen sheet slipped off to one side, exposing the head. For a long moment man and machine just stared at each other.
“Wh-Wh-What?” stammered Nessis?
“Yes,” replied the automaton, “what indeed?” It looked around at the mess on the floor. Its motions were still jerky and halting, but now they had much more purpose, more guidance, more life. “What have you done? Why am I awake, from my rest?”
“I … why … who are you?” Nessis asked, clutching his broom closer.
“I am nothing, no one,” replied the automaton, sweeping aside the remaining sheet to reveal its arms. “Why, I am less than you, if that is even possible.”
“What … what are … what do you mean, possible?” Nessis’s face screwed into a caricature of distress and annoyance as he shifted the broom from one hand to the other. “Possible to be less than me?”
“Less than you, lesser you,” the machine hooted, its voice coming impossibly from inside the dampened box. “Less than nothing, less than worthless,” it said, cocking its wooden head to one side. Part of Nessis’s mind asked if he had ever seen it do such a movement before. “Worth less than you, as little as you are worth.”
“I am worth,” Nessis said, clutching his broom to his chest. “I am worth more than you. More than five you’s.”
“Five of us, one of you,” replied the wooden man. One hand reached down and pulled at the homespun robe. It tore away from the few tacks that held it down and the automaton tossed it aside. “How do you even know what we are worth? How do you know what you are worth?”
Nessis glanced quickly around to see if anything else was moving. Nothing was. He looked back in time to see the wooden man suddenly stand up, something Nessis had not ever considered it being able to do. He tightened his grip on the broom as the thing swayed from side to side, seeming to test its footing.
“I know what I am worth,” Nessis replied.
“But does anyone else?” asked the automaton. It stepped forward, and the hidden rods that connected it to the box fell away. It was free now, free from the devices that should have been controlling it. “It’s easy to know, how small it is. Less than him, than them, than her. Than her! Does your lord and master know your worth? Do his sons? Do your friends know your worth?” It lurched forward, thrusting its head toward Nessis. “Does she?”
With sudden energy and decision, Nessis swung the broom up and thrust it at the machine, striking it full in the face. The wooden head immediately popped off, falling backward onto the floor. The remainder of the body collapsed in a heap, the limbs and torso disassembling themselves as they hit the flagstone floor. In a moment what had been a mocking facsimile of a man was now a scattered collection of random parts, disjointed and disconnected.
Nessis stared at the scattered limbs, his broom held tight and ready, but there was no further movement. After a long moment he exhaled the breath he had been holding, then whispered to himself.
“She knows.”

“… and when the jar fell it broke, and pieces of it hit the machine, and the machine started up and then it fell apart,” Nessis explained to Arbogast, as the workman showed his master the dustbin filled with the parts of the automaton, the control box sitting neatly beside it. “I did not know what else to do with it, so I collected all the bits and put them here.” Nessis looked around, as if checking to be sure none of the parts were trying to crawl away.
“So you say the jar did this,” Arbogast asked, lifting a forearm out of the dustbin, “when it broke and hit the automaton?”
“Yes, lord,” nodded Nessis. He considered a moment. “I may have forgotten a detail or two, but that is what happened.”
Arbogast read the labels Nessis had collected, glancing at his workman as he did. “Can you think of what else you may have forgotten?” he asked.
Nessis stood and thought. “If I remember, I will be sure to let you know.” he answered.
Arbogast nodded thoughtfully. “Ah, well, it is little loss.” He poked the wooden body parts in the dustbin. “It was a trinket, really, just a toy. Its design must have had a curse on it, as it never really worked anyway.” He looked knowingly at Nessis. “Not worth much at all, really. Not nearly so much as other things in here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Arbogast looked over the wreck, and looked over his workman. “Very well, Nessis. We all make mistakes. We can finish tidying up in the morning, right? Off to bed with us now. And don’t forget the cask.”
“Yes, lord,” Nessis said, taking the lamp and leading Arbogast to the door. Nessis looked back into the large room again, lamp held high, but saw nothing of note. He closed the door, and silence fell in the warehouse.