Like the decision to catch my father by his shoulder.
The old man slumps, held upright by my metal fingers. His chin falls to his chest and his face is lost in strands of brown-gray hair. I have saved him from falling into a sharp patchwork of tools that lie scattered around my legs. This low room is a workshop, lit by a tilting confusion of candles placed on every surface. Splintery wooden beams stripe the ceiling, and the room stretches beyond the light and into warm darkness. A patchwork of desks and tables are arrayed in groups. Some are empty, but most are piled high with scraps of metal, twists of rope, wooden bowls filled with unknown substances, fouled spoons, and all manner of glass vials and tubes.
Somehow, the knowledge of this workshop is in me.
Half-formed body parts are sprawled among the clutter. Chunky torsos filled with fine gears, supported by whalebone ribs and riddled with India rubber veins. This place is a workshop . . . and a womb.
Sitting up, I gently lay the old man over an empty desk.
Now, I see that I am spread out on a long wooden table. Nearby, the doll-thing smiles sightlessly in the darkness, continuing to write. Her pen scratches audibly as she covers a piece of stiff paper with ink scrawls.
She and I are kin.
My shape is that of a man. Long golden legs, glowing dully as light winks from hundreds of rivets. My skin is made of bands of a beaten, gray-gold metal, fastened to a solid frame. Through narrow gaps in the tops of my thighs, I see a row of braided metal cables pulled to tension, wrapped around circular cogs.
When I move, I hear the clockwork sound again.
“Hello?” murmurs the old man. “My son?”
Gnarled fingers wrap over my golden wrist. Faintly, I can feel the heat inside his hands. I sense that he is full of warm blood, carrying energy around his body. His skin is not like mine. Nor his heart. There is no blood within me. My father and I are not alike. He is a man, and I am something else.
“Oh, you are alive,” he says. “Finally, you are here.”
“Who are you?” I ask, releasing him.
“I am Fiovanti Favuri Romanti Cimini, although you may call me Favo. I am last mechanician to the Tsar Peter Alexyovich. Practicioner of the ancient art of avtomata and keeper of its relics. Successor to the great alchemists who came and went before history. Knower of secrets from the past and from the future. And, if you will believe the Tsar’s wife, Empress Catherine Alexeyevich . . . I am a devil.”
“Last mechanician?”
“Ten years ago, the Emperor secretly visited the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Austria. He recruited hundreds of shipbuilders, artists, and mechanicians. To one group of us, he gave a special task. Given an extraordinary artifact from the past, we were told to build . . . you. But the Empress never saw the promise. And it has been so long. The rest of my group has already been sent east to exile. I am the last, toiling alone in the dark and cowering in fear from her.”
Spittle flies from his lips in the twilight.
“But you are here now,” he says, snatching a small hammer from the table. “Look at you! Talking! Can you see me? Tell me what you see!”
“A room. A man. Machines.”
“Concise,” he says, tapping my chest lightly and listening. “Perfect. The mixture was perfect. The old texts were right. The relic is working . . . ”
The old man makes no sense. Putting my gauntlet-like hands out, I clench my fists and feel the hard metal of my fingers. Squeezing, I push to the tolerance of my strength—until I can feel the gears in my hands straining. I swing my legs off the workbench and my wooden heels scratch the floor.
I stand, the top of my head nearly brushing the low ceiling.
Favo enters the darkness. In a moment he returns, his arms wrapped around a tall golden panel. The beaten-brass mirror groans as he drags it over the dusty wooden floor. The panel seems to glow in the candlelight. He props himself against it—holding the long rectangle before me—then stops and stares.
I can feel that he is afraid.
“Look upon yourself,” he whispers.
Standing at my full height, I see my movements reflected dully in the brass panel. I am tall and thin. Very tall. My face is human-like, leather that has been coated in places with some kind of rigid wax, ringed in brown curls of hair, my eyes large and dark. My lower lip is pulled to the side, slightly disfigured. I am not wearing clothes. The skin of my chest and arms is made of beaten metal banding with occasional tight swathes of leather tidily placed underneath. This body is golden and tan, strong and long-limbed. The light haunts my eyes, and I understand why Favo has fear in his heart.
“My son?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply.
“What is the first thing?” he asks.
“The first thing?”
My voice comes from somewhere deep inside my chest. I can feel some device in there, a bellows that contracts and sends wind up my throat and between my teeth. There seem to be a multitude of voices beneath my voice. I am so much bigger than this small old man standing before me.
“Yes,” he whispers. “In your mind. Reach inside and tell me the first thing. The first word you ever knew. What is the Word?”
There is a hard truth to the limits of my body—to the solid press of my flesh and the clenching strength of my grip. I push into my mind to search for the answer to Favo’s question, and I feel another truth—even stronger than that of my flesh. It is the truth of knowledge, of a singular purpose carved into the stone of my mind.
This is the Word that is the shape of my life.
I put my eyes onto the old man, and I feel the leather of my lips scratch as I say the Word out loud for the first time.
“Pravda,” I say. “I am truth.”
GREAT EUROPEAN PLAIN, 1725
Elena’s hand is small on my shoulder, like a perched bird.
“Go,” I tell her, and the sparrow flies.
The lead rider has closed the final distance. I do not look up from where my blades lay in the grass. The muscled forelegs of a black horse approach. It slows and stops next to me. The rider does not bother to speak. I hear the slow skim of his blade leaving its scabbard. Hear the creak of his armor as he reaches back, lifting the blade high into the gray-green air.
The dragoon raises his arm and his breath expels as he swings the blade—the motion mechanically pushing air from his diaphragm. At this moment, I roll toward his horse, snaking my long arms over the grass to grip the handles of my blades. The blow misses me. On my knees, I lift the short blade and draw a red line across the horse’s belly. I fall onto my back and shove myself out of the way, watching the surprised face of the rider.
Screaming, the horse tries to rear back as a hot flood of intestines gush out of the slash in its belly. A cloud of mist billows from the cascade of bright red viscera. The rider rolls backward off his falling mount. The horse’s legs buckle and it collapses screaming into its own offal.
The lightly armored horseman is already gaining his feet when I bring the hilt of my short blade down on the crown of his head. His fur-lined helmet shatters the bridge of his nose, and he bites off the tip of his tongue. I am already sliding my dagger over his throat and adding his blood to that of his steed, gauging the distance to the pounding hooves I hear approaching.
I dive over the top of both corpses as a hail of hooves spear into the mud around me. Another horse passes by and I hear the shouting of angry men now. Standing a little way off, Elena is shouting as well. Her high-pitched voice repeats the same word—almost a melody.
Poshchady! Poshchady!
Mercy, she is screaming.
MOSCOW, 1707
“They say you are my son,” says Peter, taking a bite from an apple. He chews it loudly, watching me with large, intelligent eyes. I notice that his lip is disfigured, pulled to the side . . . the same as mine.
“Yes,” I say, crouching, my head bowed.
“Tell me, son,” he says, humor in his voice. “What is pravda?”
&nbs
p; “Truth and honor.”
“Do you swear fealty to me?”
“I do,” I respond.
“Rise and draw your sword,” says the Tsar, walking closer to me.
Peter does not wear gaudy robes or shining armor. Instead, he has on the simple breeches of an engineer, his boots clicking on the marble floor of the study. He saunters around to my face and watches me with the appraising eye of a mechanician, takes another bite from his apple.
I am standing, eye-to-eye, with the Tsar of Russia. We are exactly the same height. I ease my blade from its wooden scabbard. I hold it by my side, the tip pointed at the ground, my hand wrapped around the hilt, arm as steady as if it were carved out of stone.
“He moves like a man,” says Peter, smiling.
The Tsar leans in and snatches the hood off my head. The rawhide that covers the surface of my skull is stretched tight over cogs and gears. Brass buttons shine across the nape of my neck where the covering is fastened.
“Doesn’t look much like one, though,” he says.
“It follows the truth,” says Favo. “As you instructed. The relic provides power and sense, but it was invoked with your exact specifications.”
“Your name, avtomat?” asks the Tsar.
Nothing comes to mind.
“As you will call me,” I respond.
“Strange to stand next to someone who is as tall as I am,” he muses, chewing thoughtfully. “I’ve never done it before.”
The Tsar runs a finger over my forehead.
“He is very ugly,” he says.
“A result of my limited abilities, Emperor,” says Favo. “Please forgive me. Over time, its appearance can be improved. Any disfigurement is the fault of my own aged hands and not the avtomat itself.”
“It? You call it an it?”
“To call it otherwise would insult our Lord Christ. It is not a living thing I have made, but a bauble. Petty in comparison to God’s works.”
Peter laughs, a short bark that echoes.
“You fear Catherine, old man, even in private discussion. Probably smart. She does not trust in this project. Catherine feels that what has been lost to time should stay lost. She would have those artifacts of yours destroyed.”
Fiovani lowers his head. “Oh no, my Tsar. I do not question the Empress, of course . . . would never . . . but the relics are precious. I have already found another vessel for our remaining relic. And we cannot forget . . . our enemies have their own artifacts. Other avtomat could be plotting against us even now—”
“Enough, Fiovani,” says Peter. “Your studies are safe.”
The Tsar turns and shoves me with both of his large hands. Sensing a test, I choose not to move. My feet are planted, hand clasped around my saber, and although the Tsar is large and he hits me hard, the force is insufficient.
“He is stronger than me,” says the Tsar, face dark with exertion and a hint of anger. “Let’s see how smart he is.”
Peter steps a few feet away and clasps his hands behind his back.
“Avtomat,” he asks. “A boyar noble demands fifty men of the Preobrazhensky regiment to protect his border. Do I accept his request?”
“No, Emperor.”
“Why not?”
“Members of the Emperor’s own regiment are sworn to protect their father. To send them into battle for anyone of lower rank is a dishonor.”
“He is smart, too.”
The Tsar takes a last bite of the apple and tosses the core across the room.
“Strike me,” he says.
I do not respond.
“I am your Tsar, avtomat,” he says. “I am giving you a command that you are honor bound to follow. Swing your saber and strike me.”
“My Emperor,” stutters Fiovani. “He is very strong. Please do not underestimate the avtomat—”
“Now,” says Peter.
The impulse to obey pulls at my joints like gravity. Drawing my arm back, I let the sword tip rise. But . . . to injure the Tsar would bring dishonor. The Word blazes in my mind: Pravda.
“Do it!” shouts the Tsar.
My vision is blurring. The saber point wavers. I am compelled to obey and to disobey at the same time. The dissonance is roaring in my ears. I cannot say no and I cannot strike. I am drowning, my mind swallowing itself.
But there is a solution.
I lift the saber higher, the tip stretching toward the Tsar. Then, I rotate the flashing blade in my hands, all the way around until the point dimples the fabric of my kaftan. With both hands I tense my shoulders and I pull—
“Stop!” says the Tsar, placing a hand on my arm.
I silently return the sword to its first position.
“Welcome to Moscow . . . Peter,” the Tsar says, clapping an arm around my shoulders. “A pity you can’t have a drink to celebrate.”
“But, my Tsar, you choose to call it Peter?” asks Favo, quietly.
“I call it by its name: Peter Alexeyevich,” he says.
“I do not understand,” says Favo. “Why . . . ”
“Peter is my name while I am on this Earth. But with reason and patience, you have built a ruler who can someday take my place and rule the Russian Empire forever. Peter will carry my name like a banner through the ages, immune to the physical ruin of time and always faithful to pravda. An eternal Tsar.”
GREAT EUROPEAN PLAIN, 1725
As blades whistle by overhead, I roll over a dying horse and fall to the wet plain. I scramble onto my hands and knees, sharp hooves flashing over me. Before I can stand, a hoof stamps my sword hand into the dirt.
Two of my fingers are left behind, severed and shining in the muddy crater.
Pulling my shattered fist tight to my chest, I stagger to my feet and raise the shashka with my other hand. The nearest dragoon makes a prancing turn and rounds on me. His thighs clenching, the rider leans in his saddle—his red belt sash snapping in the wind as he gains speed.
Silver eclipses the clouds as his saber leaves its scabbard.
I am still as the quake of hooves envelops me. The dark bulk of the warhorse grows into a blur, its breath snorting from flared nostrils as it strains to carry the armored rider to intercept me.
I turn, dropping to avoid the rider’s flashing weapon.
Too late. I feel a tug between my shoulder blades. The rider’s blade connects, parts my kaftan and splits the armor beneath. Broken metal ringlets scatter past my face like a shower of coins.
But my sword remains up and steady. Its single honed edge slides along the rider’s unarmored thigh. As he gallops away, the leg bounces curiously and I see that it is dangling from tendons. The rider reaches for the wound, grunting at the sight of the injury. As his horse turns in place, craning to look back, the rider rolls out of the saddle. He hits the ground and now the leg does come off, coating the electric green grass with arterial blood.
The horse backs away, confused.
There is no pain in me. Only awareness. Three more riders are on the attack. My left arm is hanging uselessly now, damaged by the wide gash that has slit my back. I stumble and try to catch myself but my arms are not working correctly. I fall onto my stomach, face first into the muddy plain. Stalks of grass tickle the rough leather of my cheek. This close, I can see that the blades of grass are dancing with the vibration of hooves pounding dirt.
Arching my body, I lift up and roll onto my back.
A lance crunches into my chest, bending the metal of my frame into a deformed valley. I feel the pressure and shock of it, the tremor of the dragoon’s hand on the wooden shaft. I hear my innards tearing as the horse gallops by overhead. The lance is wrenched from my chest, yanking me off the ground before dropping me sprawling onto my side.
Somewhere nearby, Elena makes a small hurt sound. She is finished shouting for mercy. There is clearly none to be had.
Though I was never born of a woman, I am in fetal position now. Wounded and cowering in the way of a mortal man. I catch sight of Elena, cringing twenty yards away,
small and shapeless under her cloak.
Blood-stained hooves trample the mud all around me. The stabbing weight of a hoof snaps a strut inside my right thigh. My leg nearly comes loose from my hip socket, and I am tossed again. I land on my stomach, one brass cheekbone pushing through my leather skin and into damp earth.
Again, I am still.
A gentle rain is drumming the empty waste of the steppe. There is no more thunder. Gathered in a circle, the surviving guardsmen are speaking to each other in confused tones that sound distant and hollow.
Blood, they are saying. Blood.
They marvel that no blood is leaking from me. They are examining the blunted lance tip, noting how clean it is. What is this man made of, they wonder? What hidden armor does he wear? He is mortally wounded, yet he doesn’t cry out.
Elena is running now. She is staying low, legs scissoring under her flowing cloak. This is her best chance of escape, and it is not much of a chance at all. Like predators, the dragoons spark to the movement. The three remaining soldiers move as one to surround her. Here in blood-stained mud, with wet grass caressing my face like damp tentacles, I can only pretend to be a corpse. It is not such a stretch. In most ways, I have never been alive.
It took three death blows, enough to kill three men, to fell me.
Te Deum. Thanks to God. I am still functioning.
With one eye open, helpless, I watch through a blur of rain as Elena is snatched up by her cloak and thrown over the broad, sweaty back of a warhorse. She does not shout. There is no reason for it. By her Word, Elena never acts without a reason. On the horse, her body flops loosely, about the weight of a little girl, and wearing too many clothes for the riders to think any different. For now.
Patience, Elena. Strength.
I leave my eye open and unblinking, letting it appear sightless in death. I do not even allow the lens to dilate as I observe whatever crosses my field of view. The riders circle close to each other, conferring.
Koldun, comes the whisper.
Warlock. Monster. Man with no blood. The commander wearing the shining cuirass is a superstitious one. Best not to disturb this sleeping traveler, he advises. Leave that one to his dark ways and we’ll return with our prisoner.
The End Is Now Page 28