Jackelian transaction-engine locks he had cracked were all much of a muchness, but tackling the code hidden in the painting was like breaking an ancient safe – the maths that protected the cipher expressed with an antique elegance, and something else, something that remained intangible and just out of sight. He had been at it for most of the day, crunching and attacking, chipping away pieces of the puzzle. Half of the battle was trying to get inside the mind of the cipher’s creator. Pushing at the code to see what gave way and what held firm, modelling how he would have done it and following those avenues to their logical conclusions.
Boxiron was under no illusions about the difficulty of this job. It was as good as being a captain of the Free State’s militant orders once more, marshalling his forces and distributing them, testing the enemy, finding the weak spots to overwhelm. Every inch of Boxiron’s being knew it had been a member of the Circlist church who had secreted this code within the painting, and not just because the illustration came with the signature of William of Flamewall scrawled across it. The maths were of the highest order, everything balanced with the symmetry that the softbody faith attempted to incorporate into its formula-based moral rules. Yes, that was the weakness of the cipher’s creator. Too much symmetry.
Not enough chaos and randomness.
The randomness of—
—the steam from Boxiron’s stack drifted across the hotel room. Thickening. Reforming.
It had been so long since they had come. And he wasn’t even calling them today. Not a drop of his oil shed. Not a single cog thrown. For which of the Steamo Loas would come for Catosian cogs, which would visit for Jackelian oil? Which of the spirits of his ancestors would manifest themselves for such a desecrated body as was his now?
Radius Patternkeeper, Lord of the Ravenous Fire.
The words of the Loa came out like a snake’s hiss, echoing from the distant plane occupied by the people of the metal’s ancestors. ‘Do not attempt to do this thing.’
‘Who are you to make requests of me?’ spat Boxiron at the smoking form swaying in front of him. ‘I who am a desecration in your eyes. I who have gone unaided by King Steam in this living hell of a body my mind has been condemned to join with.’
‘Yet you have called us,’ said Radius Patternkeeper. ‘Filling a mind that was once of the people with the dark cipher that must not be decrypted. You have summoned me as surely as if you spilled your own oil and tossed your own cogs in the ritual of gear-gi-ju.’
The steamman got to his feet, angrily. ‘I am still of the people. I am Boxiron, even if I am a shadow of what I once was. I abide.’
‘No. Boxiron died well on the Fulven Fields,’ said the Loa. ‘His corpse piled with the bodies of our enemies, his knight’s lance broken through those that would have destroyed our land.’
‘Then you should not have allowed Jackelian grave robbers to staple his skull onto this mockery of a body they fashioned in a Catosian manufactory.’
‘The army searched,’ hissed the Loa. ‘But there were so many bodies, so many corpses. And the mechomancers’ grave robbers came like carrion on the wind after the battle.’
‘You should have searched better,’ retorted Boxiron. ‘And then we would surely not be having this discussion now.’
‘Erase the steganographic code within your mind,’ ordered the Loa. ‘Then destroy the painting you took it from.’
‘Tell me why I should.’ demanded Boxiron.
‘It is not upon you to question the will of the Steamo Loa.’
‘As it is not upon you to order me to do this. My friend Jethro Daunt requires the cipher to be broken.’
‘The softbody is called by his people’s gods. Ancient ones that have been long forgotten,’ hissed the twisting steam shape manifesting from his stack fumes. ‘Forgotten with good reason. The great pattern can only be woven forwards; it can never be woven backwards. Your friend cannot be trusted.’
‘Easy words,’ Boxiron growled. ‘But I choose to judge on actions. Jethro Daunt helped save me from what I had become when my own people would not even look me in the vision plate as I begged for high-grade boiler coke outside our temples. I will trust his judgement over yours, Radius Patternkeeper. You who will not even trust me with the truth when you would order my obedience.’
The shape in the smoke danced from side to side