Xachar
With a new supply of ink and books, the gem continued to grow. The new Pressmen regime reveled in this. “It is a sign of our better leadership,” they announced to the barracks. They didn’t mention Xachar.
Occasionally, a team would return from abroad and bring pieces of the emerald back with them. They’d pass the ink-laden gem sections through the door and Xachar would lay these atop the rest of the gem overnight.
The next morning, the pieces of gem would be incorporated into the whole, and the entire gem would darken by several shades.
Each time this happened, on the room’s far side, the Midnight Emerald overtook more of the press. A facet gouged a whole in the wall. Xachar dreamed once that the gem grew over him while he slept.
That’s when Xachar stopped taking naps near the press. He stopped sleeping well in the dorms either as the press began to creak under the weight.
If you keep it running, it won’t hurt you.
Xachar couldn’t think of his family. He thought hard about the mess he was in to avoid remembering his aunt’s face, her mind wiped clean like a blank page, imagining the others lost somewhere in the bowels of the Pressmen’s camp. He tried to look for them, had asked once and been laughed at. Everyone thought he was strange. No one of consequence.
Worse, he had a much more immediate problem than the fear he felt for his family.
The bigger the Midnight Emerald got, the more ink it required. And as far as Xachar could tell, there wasn’t much ink remaining aside from the Universal Compendiums of Knowledge themselves.
Xachar attempted once to explain to the press that ink was a finite resource. He felt ridiculous talking to a gem. He tried mixing more ink himself, requisitioning new ink from elsewhere. But nothing worked the same way as ink that had already formed a word on a page. The press rejected it.
The day a book on the history of gems made its way to the pressroom, Xachar had tried to read up, to discover how to logic with the gem. He only got to the part where they whispered, where they controlled minds, before the second captain caught him at it.
“You don’t need that,” she said. “We have the manual and the Universal Compendiums of Knowledge.” As Xachar watched, she fed the book to the press herself. Her long fingers grazed the press’s intake wheel, and she yelped. Pulled her hands away just in time.
Xachar hadn’t believed a word he read of the now-lost book. Still, to spite the second captain, he tried to remember what the chapter he’d been reading had said. He decided that if they could whisper and control minds, gems could also listen.
So he started speaking to the Midnight Emerald again. On long, cold evenings in Quadril when the rest of the squad was in the barracks, Xachar told the Midnight Emerald all the news from abroad.
He began reading to the press, and the gem, from books before he fed them in.
He spoke so much, his voice grew hoarse, which was fine because he didn’t have anyone else to talk to. In the dormitories, other Pressmen avoided him. Said he was too sallow, too odd. Not a real Pressman, even though he did the hardest of jobs.
And to his great delight, the gem stopped growing, stopped working its way over the press’s struts, stopped growing like a hornets’ nest underneath.
But the gem’s low ebb-and-flow thrum never stopped.
When Xachar was out of the room, he longed for the sound. He took a spare cot down to the pressroom so he could tend the machine and its gem night and day. The gray canvas and wood sling fit against the far wall, out of the gem’s reach.
Dangerous, sure, but Xachar didn’t want anyone else tending the press.
Soon, he slept there all the time. He was no longer nervous.
When the captain learned of Xachar’s new habits, he entered the pressroom without knocking. “Are you certain? Even after what happened to the others?” He caught Xachar bent over the press, fixing an intake cylinder.
Without rising, Xachar nodded. “No one’s spent as much time with the press as I have. And I’m not ill.” On the contrary, both he and the press were doing better than ever.
His clothes were sweat stained, and his skin had taken on the sheen of an ink drum, but operations were moving faster than ever.
So fast that they were once again running out of books for the press, and out of the ink that the press needed. The captain noticed. And Xachar noticed him noticing.
But the gem had yet to pale.
“We’ll double Compendium production tonight,” the captain said. “The gem can take it. The new Pressmen territories need copies.”
Xachar straightened, wiped his hands on his pants, and frowned. “That will require more books in the end.” Were there more books somewhere?
“We’ll do another pass through the territories,” his captain said. “There are surely still some that people have been hiding.” The Pressman glared at the emerald. “Greedy thing.”
The press and the emerald that bore it seemed to list toward the door. Xachar found himself with his hand on the knob, his back against the heavy oak, blocking the Pressman’s exit.
“No,” he whispered. The room turned dark green. Ink shadows curtained his eyes.
Xachar woke in the room with the press. His hands bloodstained. Gore in his hair. The sound of pounding on the door outside.
“Locked! The madman’s locked it. He’s in there with the press.”
“Where’s the Pressman?”
“Xachar, where’s the captain?”
A whispered “You won’t believe it when you see him—like the color’s drained right out of the man. Spooky.” Then, louder: ”We should break open the door!”
Xachar looked at his hands again. They were pale, but stains dark as ink ran beneath his nails.
And the press—the Midnight Emerald nearly covered half of it, and was much darker. What had happened? Had he finally gone as mad as the others? Xachar felt fine.
Keep it running.
No. Xachar felt better than fine. He could sense things now—ink and paper. He could hear the rustling of treasured books hidden throughout Quadril.
The Midnight Emerald whispered too, and Xachar could hear its hunger.
He wanted books and ink for the press. For the campaign. For the Midnight Emerald. But they were outside. And between him and outside were several Pressmen.
How to get out and find what he needed, without being caught.
Many days ago, in the main square of Far Reaches University, Pressmen had blown ink dust in the faces of those who disagreed with them.
Xachar remembered the blank looks on professors’ faces. He checked the bin where printing dust and lint collected. Nearly empty. That wouldn’t help.
But. The press itself. The books were stripped blank when they ran through the machine.
Could the press work on other kinds of knowledge? Xachar wondered silently, and the answer came loud and clear. Yes. All kinds.
The press smelled of grit and grime, blood, ink, and memory, all tied together, all enough to bring a thing alive.
Xachar slowly unlocked the door. He looked out at the Pressmen on the other side.
“I need to show you something,” he said. “Please come in.”
And he and the press waited for the others to enter.