Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 725
which you have fallen."
At her words they stopped.
They stared in silence at her, then beyond her to the
turmoil in the skies.
Then they knelt before her.
Armiger stood on the edge of a cliff. Three hundred
meters below and kilometers away, his mecha were dying
under the lightning bolts of the Heaven hooks--all save one, a
thing like a great metal tree that had begun in the past hour to
sprout strange multilimbed animalcules, which were harvesting
minerals and ores from the rocky terrain around it. This
abomination fended off the lightning as if it were rain. He
could see it from here, for it glowed a dull red now from its
internal furnaces. The forest around it was burning.
He could hear it, too, chuckling inside his head.
You did well, Armiger. This place is perfectly suited to
our task.
He shuddered. If he probed deep inside himself, he knew
he would find that the strange repository of nanomemory,
which he had calculated could hold centuries of vast
experience, was gone. It had slipped out of him on its own
accord when he began creating mecha. It had been a
resurrection seed, and he had unwittingly set it free.
Feel the energy under us! These local beings have
tapped geothermal potentials of magnificent power. When my
roots have reached deep enough, my growth will be geometric.
You could not have chosen a better ground in which to seed
me.
3340's voice alone was enough to freeze Armiger in his
tracks. He felt pinioned as by a giant searchlight--the attention
of a god was on him. Compared to it, the wrath of the Winds