Free The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick Page B

legs as he kept striding onwards. He had to concentrate on not stumbling over the men who fell under his feet and were squashed beneath him. He laughed out loud again when arrows started clattering against the metal man’s skin.
    He looked up and saw the men on the roof of the building beside him and reached out a long metal arm. Where he punched the wall, the rocks collapsed, and the men hiding behind them fled. Now the house of his destination was before him. He walked to the corner of the building and looked up at the tower there. He turned his head to the magnfiers above his eyes and stared up at the window of Lucia’s room. She was looking down at him in awe. He could not hear her voice, but he could see her lips moving. She was calling to him, he supposed. She knew it was him. It could only be him, coming to her.
    The metal man reached up an arm that increased in length as cogs and wires stretched out extensions to the hand. It stretched all the way to her window and he saw her hesitate there just a moment, before stepping to the window sill and jumping down into the metal hand. Immediately he turned the giant about, bringing the hand down so that she was protected by the huge metal body. Lucia, his loved one, curled into a ball, pressed against him, and he wished he could feel her through the metal.
    Then he felt the change happening as she leant into him. Felt her merging into his large metal body, felt her heart seeking out his. Felt the wings of the butterfly inside his chest. “Not here,” he said, feeling his armour turning into flesh. He turned to stride back up the street, so the transformation could be complete, knowing they would not be safe until it had. Then the change would spread out around them, changing the whole city, restoring peace.
    â€œWhat is this?” asked Galileo, holding up the sketch he had been working on.
    â€œA giant metal man, controlled by a person standing inside it here.”
    Galileo looked over the diagrams carefully, then said, “Where are the counter-weights to allow the arms to lift up?”
    â€œI will put them here and here,” Lorenzo said, taking the diagram and adding them to it.
    â€œBut the machine is too heavy on top now. It will over-balance too easily.”
    â€œNot if the operator is skilled enough.”
    â€œBut if it falls just once, the weight of the machine would damage any of the joints here and here, and it could not rise again to walk.”
    Lorenzo sucked in his cheeks. “Then he would not be allowed to fall,” he said.
    â€œPerhaps it needs four legs,” Galileo offered. “Or wheels?”
    â€œBut then it would not be a metal man,” said Lorenzo. “It would be half man half horse. Or half man, half cart.”
    â€œIf you truly wanted it to be a man it should have a giant metal phallus,” said Galileo. Lorenzo blushed a little. “And a fully operational one at that. How do you propose constructing that? And what about an arsehole? What would it shit? Metal cast offs?”
    â€œIt’s only meant to represent a man,” Lorenzo said.
    â€œIt could be a metal pig or goat, if that is the shape best suited to its purpose,” Galileo said. “Whatever that purpose might be.” That was his way of asking what Lorenzo meant it for, although he suspected that his master already had an inkling.
    â€œIt is to strike awe into the hearts of men so that they run away,” Lorenzo said.
    â€œHmmm,” said Galileo. “So would not a mythical beast be more appropriate? Something from a person’s nightmares?”
    â€œIt is not meant to scare everybody,” Lorenzo said. “Just those who attack it.”
    â€œSo it’s designed for a use that is likely to have people attacking it, is it? And this here, is that not a magnifier?”
    â€œYes,” said Lorenzo, “to see through. And here, see, this arm can extend via several metal tubes that slide