The primordial ones separate the chaff from the wheat. They are masters of the kiln and the battlefield, having tasted the Pallid Throne more times than their lesser peers. The worms who crawl upon the Great Devourer’s vocal cords envy them, for they are everything they wish to be. Yet, the greatest of the engineers are not without their flaws. Icarus’s hubris cost him the throne, Xerxes’s envy his fingers and pride, and Persephone split her soul to escape gluttony and lust. Their weaknesses set them apart. Perhaps that is the extent of the Great Devourer’s mercy, for only one of her children can be crowned the victor.
Velbrava cupped his hands to catch the tiny red droplets that slipped through the cornea. He was used to this space, the ripples in the membrane, and the sticky touch of bent rods and cones. There was a hole in the ceiling, a pit in the lens where a pupil once spun.
The rat king’s vibriatus didn’t respond well to his touch at first. No owned vibriatus ever would, or, at least, that’s what they thought. Indeed, Velbrava’s body was once slow to move, with a clicking noise between his joints as he dragged his left foot. An engineer forced to shape his own body. The insult caused his fingers to twitch and the jagged spines along his jaw to vibrate until red hot.
Velbrava made his vessel from Icarus’s eye. Feet from the macula, tail from the retina, and the rods and cones that stuck between his toes made talons and teeth. There was a bubble that formed now, a rising mass of tissue that hunched his back and bent his spine. Velbrava filled the empty spaces with too much vitreous humor. It rose to the surface whenever he grew angry, causing a mass of blisters to form across his back.
At first, it hurt to take but one step, his toes bending every which way to escape his heel. Then came a scraping sound as his shoulder blades ground together in sockets much too shallow. Velbrava dislocated his right arm every second step. The bone returned to the joint with a pop, followed by exquisite pain, the kind that made him scream.
Just one more step.
Pop!
There it went again.
Back when the pupil still spun, and the floor was smooth and dry, he trembled from the pain. Yet, as time went on and the rat king bested foe after foe, Velbrava came to enjoy the pain. He greeted it like an old rival. Where once he was forced to his knees, Velbrava now stood, his joints no longer squeaking, and his arms clicking into place. Only his left leg remained stubborn as a mule.
Velbrava achieved the impossible, near-total submission of another engineer’s tissue. That’s when his spirit turned from blue to green, not pale but deep like an emerald. His luminescent digits, too, had grown steady and firm, for no other engineer save Icarus could claim as much control as he. Indeed, his toes no longer twisted, and the silver threads along his back beat in unison as he touched his fingers to the center of his thumb.
Pop!
There went his arm again, but not by accident. No, Velbrava came to love the pain; that scarlet touch of a red-hot poker, that tooth split feel of a nail pulled back, and that piercing ache of a shattered wrist. He was no longer afraid, no longer concerned with the twitch in his back leg. He had mastered his pain but was still far behind his siblings.
Velbrava had much to learn.
“Do you see how you pinch the membrane so?” Icarus asked, his voice echoing around that tiny cell.
Velbrava looked at the red clay cupped in his hands. Indeed, he had worked the fluid until it was sticky and soft, flattening the dough into a thin sheet. He then pinched the center to create texture with spines.
“Yes, what of it?”
“You’ve used too much force. Look, the stalk is thin at the base. Those spines will never set right. You’ve also left indents in the membrane. Pockets that will fill with air when incubated and make the skin brittle and loose,” Icarus said.
Velbrava squinted in the pale light, bringing his nose close to the thin sheet. Icarus was right, the spine was already drooping to the left, and he could see tiny holes forming near the base where the clay was weak.
“I see,” Velbrava said, moving his fingers across the sheet to a spot unmolested by his touch.
Now he tried a gentler motion, something that lightly pulled the dough towards the center, forming a hill and then a mountain. Next, he applied a bit more force towards the top, creating a pointed edge beneath a fat base.
“How is this?” Velbrava asked, holding the sculpture up towards the ceiling.
“Better but use less dough when forming the spines. Look at the sides. The membrane is shallow around the hill and will form weak points for astute observers.”
Velbrava dropped his hands and smoothed the sheet over, ready to try once more. There was always balance, a hidden scale; too much of this, too little of that, and the legs came out stringy, the torso soft, and teeth like soft grains of rice. He’d never really thought much about how he designed. Like so many engineers, he rushed the creation process to join the heat of battle.
Velbrava knew better now. An engineer with a steady hand and careful touch stood a chance against even the best minds for warfare. Caught in an ambush? What did it matter when your eldriatus’s hide was too thick to be pierced? Outnumbered in battle? What did it matter when your eldriatus spit lightning and shook the reigns of the master’s horse? No wonder the primordial engineers stood so far above them. They were the lords of the kiln and strategists beyond comparison.
“See, that’s much better. Look closely at the spine. The base is thick but without sacrificing too much from the surrounding tissue. Now the digit will set properly, and the flesh will remain strong,” Icarus said.
“I see it now.” Velbrava brought the clay close to his nose once more.
“I will teach you another trick, now that I have your attention.” Icarus’s eye shifted so that Velbrava’s cell was facing his snout. “Look at how you’ve made the spine. Sharp at the point but dull all around.”
“I made it to puncture. If I wanted it to cut, I’d sharpen one edge.”
“Yes, but what if the other engineer made a hide too thick for those spines? You may puncture it, but it will do you no good.”
“Then I’d make it longer,” Velbrava said, smoothing over the clay once more.
“Brother, your thinking is too shallow. You cannot sacrifice all this tissue for a single horn. What will you do about the liver and the Lungs?” Icarus asked.
“What would you do, then?”
“Bend the spine inward and give it a jagged edge with a pointed tip.”
“How would that help? A crooked blade wouldn’t make a clean cut.”
"Indeed, but the pointed tip will still puncture through, and by curving the blade with jagged teeth, the cut would be crooked and stick within. The more the enemy struggles, the deeper those blades go. Now your eldriatus can anchor itself and chew its way through chitin and bone. No matter how your opponent struggles, those fangs won’t be removed so easily,” Icarus said.
“So, you would design spines that stick rather than cut?”
“I would make digits that do both. Never forget, a crooked cut doesn’t heal straight, forming a weakness to exploit should your opponent survive.”
“You consider this much in a single hair?”
“If you wish to rise above your betters, you will start doing the same. Only children fight without a proper bake, Velbrava. You need to grow up and fast because when the Pallid duchy sinks into the dunes, you won’t be fighting children anymore.”
Icarus was right. If Velbrava wanted to win, to drive the crown of the Pallid Throne upon his head, he was going to have to think outside of the box.
“Why are you doing this?” Velbrava asked, rolling the dough in his hands. “Aren’t you afraid of what I might do with the knowledge?”
“Do you think I enjoy pulling wings off flies? Do you think I enjoy cutting through the chaff to get to the wheat? Maybe next time you will provide a challenge and won’t do something as stupid as trying to take my vibriatus,” Icarus said.
The floor seemed to get hot beneath Velbrava’s feet, and the eyes that surrounded his little cell shifted towards him, pupils quivering in the dark.
“Do you know what it was like when I alone sat upon the throne? Do you know what it was like when they all bowed their heads and called me king?” Icarus’s voice trembled like a brewing tempest and there was a pause, a brief silence that sunk so deep Velbrava could hear the flick of a whisker. “It was boring, brother. So boring I wanted to gouge out my eyes and feed them to our siblings. At least then they would have the courage to challenge me for the throne.”
“But Xerxes did challenge you,” Velbrava said.
“Yes, but not without a push. Do you know who gave him that push? Do you know who whispered the rebellious chant to their cowed peers?”
Again, silence. Velbrava only heard rumors about how the wars started. Xerxes, the hollow spear was said to be the mastermind.
“It was me, you fool! I gave them the banner! I gave them their first design and the kick they needed to start a war! I may have lost from the first, but do you know what frustrates me most of all!?” Icarus spit as the floor trembled. “Oh, the mighty Xerxes who brought the rat king low! All of you believe he was the one who started the Pallid Wars! No, I was the one who started the war! Not him! He was once no different from you, scratching at the walls of my eye!” There was fire in the air now, and the tips of Velbrava’s toes shook beneath the weight of Icarus’s voice. “Velbrava,” Icarus said, calming his voice. “Let me tell you a secret. Do you know why the nectar of the Pallid Throne tastes so sweet? Why every engineer craves a bite? What about you? Certainly, you must desire it as well?”
Oh, yes, Velbrava did. Though the nectar had never touched his tongue, he dreamt of it all the same. That feeling of pale syrup running down his throat and burning the membrane. Sweet, savory, and sour. All engineers instinctively knew the flavor.
“When I sat upon the throne so many ages ago, that nectar tasted dull. Little more than milk and honey. So why is it now that it tastes so pungent? Why is it now that it burns the back of your throat and snaps the senses?” Icarus asked.
“Because you’ve won,” Velbrava whispered.
“It’s because you sacrificed and pushed yourself to the limit of your talent and came out on top. The throne is but consolation to that fact. Never has something so simple tasted so sweet.”
As Icarus spoke, Velbrava felt something wet run down his cheekbone. He lifted his fingers and brushed the tiny hairs just under his left eye. They came back wet with ichor as red as a ruby, not like clay, but a viscous fluid that stained the floor. Then came sadness, a deep longing for something lost. That feeling knocked him to his knees and sapped the strength from his limbs. It was like the sun had set within Velbrava’s soul, his spirit fading to a pale green.
“What’s happening to me?” Velbrava asked.
The eye he called home quivered like the many others that surrounded him. Then, Icarus shed tears of blood, which dropped into his cell like soft rain.
“The weeping has begun,” said Icarus, raising his head and drawing a deep breath. “Xerxes is gone.”
“But why do I weep? Why am I so sad?”
"Have you learned nothing from what I just said?!” Icarus struck the wall of his kiln. “Our brother is dead and not by our hand! What joy could possibly come from that?!”