Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire, #1)

by Yoon Ha Lee

Weniat and his team were standing in the winnower’s shelter zone. All modern winnowers provided a shelter zone for their teams. It was anyone’s guess as to whether this model’s would work as specified. The first winnowers hadn’t had shelter zones at all. The winnower made sounds like a furnace exploding, like wineglasses singing shattered, like bells slamming from side to side. It didn’t give off light, but spewed the kind of wind you would get if you twisted a world’s worth of clouds into a spindle and let go after a hundred years. The shelter zone was working, indicated by a faint lambent glow. The question was whether the winnower itself was having any effect. Here in the park, amid the trees’ long shadows, it was hard to tell. Wait. There was a whisper. A knot in a tree was opening into a cracked eye. A strange blemished radiation glared from it. The deer had wandered back toward the noise. The winnower clattered, and it reared up. Light bled from the deer’s eyes, the color of scars and unwhole moons. It staggered a few steps before falling. Curved gashes opened in its throat and flanks, from which tiny teeth gleamed, and there were snapping noises. There was something comical about the angles the deer’s legs made. Round shapes boiled out of the gashes. Eyes. All of the eyes were looking at the winnower. They were in the shelter zone. They were safe.