The hands of Yendin Baddo

The next three days sailing the obsidian deeps on board the Void Dog saw great improvement in my physical condition under the ministrations of Sachiko. She was a fascinating woman, and was apparently descended from a long line of 'deep sailors', as they called themselves. I gathered that they looked upon people who traveled the dimensions only by using gates as hopelessly limited, never really knowing the wonders that existed in the rich vastness that was accessible to them, and thought only slightly more highly of those like myself, who could Step across realities under our own power. A ship like the Void Dog could safely reach places that were almost myths to me, so far off my normal path were they. Her attitude towards the Traveler's Guild, the most powerful cross-dimensional organization I knew of, was dismissive at best, and the invective she leveled against the Jump Cops made very clear her feelings toward those gentlemen.

The Void Dog was still a day and a half out of port when Sachiko compared me to Yendin Baddo. When I told her I didn't know the name, she related the story of Baddo and his miraculous metal hands.

Yendin Baddo, it seems, was the youngest son of Master Artisan Brethon Baddo, chief artisan for the Compact of 8 Kingdoms, a legendary union of advanced people long ago lost to the mists of time. Master Artisan Baddo, stories said, was the only person to master the crafting skills of all 8 Kingdoms, and as such could create items of incredible intricacy and beauty.

When Master Artisan Baddo's youngest child was born without hands, Baddo decided that she would give her son what life had not, and set about creating as perfect a mechanical substitute as was possible. For a woman of the Master Artisan's skill, giving Yendin, her son, hands that functioned as well as any natural hands was just a starting point, and, as Yendin grew, each new set of hands the Master Artisan crafted for him surpassed the last. When Yendin grew into full manhood, he was presented with the greatest pair of hands his mother could devise.

One hand was golden, the other crimson. Each one was strong enough to crush steel, and sensitive enough for Yendin to feel dust motes as they landed. Each one incorporated all that an artisan would need to work metal, or stone, or any other substance as easily as normal hands could work clay.

Yendin, while schooled in creating artifacts by his mother, and possessing great skill, was not interested in becoming a Master Artisan. Shortly after Yendin Baddo received his newest hands, he vanished from the 8 Kingdoms. The Master Artisan was brokenhearted, and while she continued to create, some spark had vanished with her son.

Stories of Yendin Baddo came back to the 8 Kingdoms, and to his grieving mother, over the next decades. The stories told of Yendin becoming a mighty warrior, of single combat with dragons and trolls, liches and vampires, of towns and princesses saved, and these tales gladdened the heart of the Master Artisan, for, if she must be separated from her favorite child, at least she knew he was a good man.

Gradually, the traveling bards had no more stories to tell, and nothing was heard of Yendin Baddo for more than three score years. Rumors of his death were told in taverns in the 8 Kingdoms, although no two were alike, and none could claim to have met any who might have sure knowledge of Yendin Baddo's demise. The Master Artisan grew old hearing these rumors, and created less and less as the years passed.

The stories of Yendin Baddo's heroism and death faded from public interest, and were told no more. The minds of the people dwelt, as always, on the day to day task of making way through the life they had.

When word of the Army of Brothers conquering the warring duchies in the Outmarches drifted to the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms, few, if any took much notice. Many had tried to unify the Outmarches, and none had succeeded for any length of time. Few noticed when the Outmarches declared they would now be known as the Empire of Brothers. Few cared when the newly minted Empire reached out and added Balykan to itself. Some expressed admiration when the Empire managed to subdue the mountain strongholds of Urk in the Star-Capped Range, and crushed the thief clans that ran roughshod over the cities on the edge of the Shining Deserts.

It was not until the borders of the Empire grew near to the borders of the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms that the common citizen began to become uneasy. It began to impinge on the consciousness of the mass of the 8 Kingdoms that the Empire had a habit of doing the unthinkable when expanding itself, and nothing had seemed more unthinkable that a direct threat to the Compact. Five thousand years had passed since the last invader had threatened the 8 Kingdoms, and they were long in the habit of assuming that any invader would look at the Compact as invulnerable.

When the war came, it was more destructive than any could have imagined. The Empire had vast numbers on its side, and they were led by the First Brother, a masked general of whom even his enemies said was the greatest war leader any had ever known. The 8 Kingdoms had shaken free of its complacency, and rediscovered the arts of war and of creating war machines, and fought the invading Empire for every inch of territory it took, but all came to nothing. Five years after the Empire's soldiers had crossed the border into the Compact, the First Brother himself stood in the highest chamber of the Compact's government and personally executed the last Sanhedrin of the Compact, and the 8 Kingdoms ceased to exist. The land that had belonged to the Compact was ravaged by the war, the cities destroyed, the forests burned, any semblance of order cast aside.

It is assumed that the First Brother thought he would rebuild the Empire's newly conquered territory, as immediately after victory, he had his men bring before him the Master Artisan Baddo. Her ancient eminence stood before the First Brother as his lieutenants asked her to put her genius at their disposal, so the Empire could begin its rise to surpass the 8 Kingdoms in every way. The Master Artisan stood silently, ignoring the entreaties, orders, and threats of the generals of the Army of Brothers and the leaders of the Empire. When at last one of the soldiers became so angered at the Master Artisan's refusal to respond that he made a move to strike her, the First Brother finally spoke, his voice halting the soldier and causing him to kneel with his face pressed to the stone floor in apology for having aroused the First Brother's ire.

The warrior emperor towered over the wizened craftsman, and he was forced to bend at the waist to put his masked face near to her ear. None could hear what words passed between them, but the Master Artisan became pale, and open despair was seen to break over her worn features. She spoke to him in the same near-silent tone. The First Brother straightened, and extended his arm towards the door of a small room, which they entered together, shutting the door on all others.

Two hours later, the First Brother's retainers screwed up their courage and broke down the door. The found the Master Artisan Baddo seated in a chair, wrinkled hands folded in her lap, a serene look on her face, dead. The First Brother sprawled on the floor at her feet; his face, for the first time any could remember, was bare, his dead eyes staring at the ceiling.

If any had still been alive to remember, they would have seen Yendin Baddo, First Brother of the Empire of Brothers, lying dead at his mothers feet, the stumps of his arm stretched out on either side of his inert form.

The Empire of Brothers fell apart without the First Brother to lead it, and the lands it had encompassed sank into anarchy. All vestiges of the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms, every wonder they had created, was destroyed by the centuries of petty war that followed. The hands of Yendin Baddo, the First Brother, became things of legend, and vanished.