Of Steel and Steam

by Pauline Creeden et al.

  The steady shuffling didn’t change.

  Until it did.

  There were three of them, and they charged her together, but she thought that was by chance rather than coordination. They didn’t even seem to be aware of one another, only of her.

  Too-human fingers closed on her sleeve, and she severed the arm attached to them.

  That was the worst. She looked up at the creature and found that it was barely deformed, just the body of an old man with blue eyes and noble, flowing mustaches. He had begun to decay before a jolt of ennoea woke his tissues, and his face, behind the blank hunger, was tight with constant pain.

  She twirled away from the others and brought her blade down on him, cleaving through the collarbone and down toward the heart. He shuddered and turned on her, nearly tearing the grip from her hand, but she yanked it free and slashed again, and this time, the old man dropped.

  Blue-green sparks slid down the length of the curved blade.

  The other two had stopped. Eyes glittered at her in the candlelight, black and multifaceted, green and faintly luminous, and she had a moment to think that, even if they did not understand her words, perhaps they understood self-preservation. Perhaps they preferred prey that wouldn’t fight back. Perhaps they would rather disappear back into the dark than risk dancing with her.

  Gulp, gulp.

  “Hehhh, hehhh.”

  Then one of them moved.

  It still had a human face, but the face had been split in two by the distortion of its skull. A sharp and bony muzzle poked out between its torn lips.

  Gulp, gulp.

  It turned its beetle eyes away from her and toward the candle.

  Gulp, gulp.

  The other watched her narrowly. Perhaps its face was still human beneath the short, wiry hairs, but its body looked more like a starved bear. Its lips drew back.

  “Hehhh, hehhh.”

  “Let me help you,” she pleaded.

  Gulp.

  Then there was another sound, wet and phlegmy. The split-faced creature opened its mouth, and a gob of slime knocked the candle to the floor of the tunnel.

  Frozen, Aurelia watched it fall, a tiny meteor in the dark, burning up and burning out.

  Its light died.

  And the darkness seemed suddenly alive with sound, footsteps and clicking bones and chattering teeth. A low moan rose, as from a human throat, higher and higher, shaking the stone.

  She slashed by instinct and felt the very tip of her blade catch on flesh. Something stumbled, feet stuttering against the stone. She stepped forward and slashed again, and the resistance told her she had struck deep.

  But even her eyes would not adjust to the total darkness below the earth. Only flickering blue-green sparks lit the tunnel, dancing and then dying as they dripped from the wounded monster. The noises enveloped her, and she slashed once more, but hit nothing.

  And she ran.

  Her own feet and breath masked the sounds of any pursuers, deafening in the close tunnel. Something snatched at her coattails, and she turned and hacked downward, satisfied with the sudden flare of turquoise light. This creature grunted in pain and snapped at her. She felt hot, damp breath at her throat and the little shudder of the air as teeth clacked together, and she swung at it again. Some piece of its body thudded to the floor, and she ran again.

  Not straight, though. In the dark, even the walls of the tunnel were invisible, and her shoulder suddenly met stone. She spun and tumbled to the floor, grasping uselessly for her shotel as it clattered away. A faint glow still clung to its cutting edge, though, and she scrambled after it immediately, hissing as she put weight on the palm of her left hand.

  Claws raked at her calf.

  Her hand found the grip, and she rolled to her back, swinging without aim. Her forearm knocked the creature away, and she followed the swing through, the sickle-like blade finding flesh.

  Without even waiting to see if it bled, she was up again and running, hands outstretched.

  And then there was the cellar door, the iron latch, and it was open, and she was through, and it was locked behind her.

  There was no heavy thud of bodies throwing themselves against the other side. No furious howls. Even the terrible moan was inaudible from this side of the door.

  She took a bottle from the rack, not caring what it might contain, and limped to her room.

  The wind in the chimney wept softly, its voice almost human.

  Magnus did not ask about her limp, as he had not asked about the scratches and cuts, or about her hand.

  And as deeply as Aurelia felt the need to demand answers, she found herself silent. The words stuck behind her teeth. His workspace would be down there, somewhere, beyond the catacombs. He had to have encountered the creatures. He had to know about them. But they didn’t seem to have left their marks on him. Why?

  I will not believe he has set them to guard his laboratory, she decided. It was the obvious conclusion to draw. Obvious to anyone to didn’t know him as she did. I will not lay blame on him just because these things have infested his basement. Not until there was more evidence than mere circumstance.

  They shared breakfast in the small room where he had greeted her, and Aurelia would rather have broken her fast with Helena. The fire had to work hard to warm the air. Even the coffee was chilled.

  “You said I might ask you for ennoea,” she said after a time.

  “You might,” he replied. He had not warmed to her, but his anger had not resurfaced. He stared at the candelabrum, fork absently tapping the edge of his plate. He still wore the gloves, and Aurelia began to glean why. The food Helena set before him was already cut. His thumb did not bend, and his fingers curled only stiffly around the utensil. His grip had lost most of its strength and all of its precision. He stabbed at a fragment of toasted bread with the coordination of a small child.

  “If I asked,” she tried, exasperated, “would you let me have some?”

  He started and blinked at her as though coming back from someplace very far away. “I would, but what I have is unprocessed. Continuing with your batch will be as quick. I do have a larger apparatus you can use, though. Two batches will be quicker than three or more.”

  That would have been more helpful yesterday, she nearly said, but she held her tongue. It was the best she had gotten from him, yet.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded, dropped his fork, and sipped the cooling coffee. “I’ll have the boy retrieve it.”

  The boy.

  She glanced up at his eyes, not sure what she was looking for. They were fixed on the candelabrum again.

  “Thank you.” She flexed her own stiff hand. “I’d appreciate your assistance with the process. I’d…” She paused.

  “I don’t know how well I can assist, but the boy is dexterous enough, with instruction. I’ll have it assist you.”

  “I’d appreciate your company.”

  “Oh. Very well.”

  But she was no longer sure she really would enjoy his company. The coffee soured on her tongue, and she set down her cup. “Magnus, what is the boy?”

  He looked at her with a lifted eyebrow and a trace of chilly irony. “Must I instruct you, magistrix?”

  She stared him down, and after a hard heartbeat, he averted his eyes just as he always had when chastised.

  “A failed project. My first attempt at a golem.”

  “First?”

  “Only. The result was not exactly satisfactory. I meant to try again, use the failure to refine my technique. But then…” He raised his permanently flexed hands and then tucked them under the edge of the table.

  “Why? You hadn’t begun this when the Orphics came for us.”

  A shrug. But he would not look at her; his heavy brow creased.

  “Why risk destruction? If they had found you…”

  “I’m aware. They laid out very clearly and in writing what they’d do if I resumed my studies. They didn’t find out.”

  “It was reckles
s.”

  “No more reckless than writing to you. I don’t believe they ever found out about that, either.”

  That silenced Aurelia. Another apology struggled in her throat, but she swallowed it. Her apologies weren’t welcome.

  “I was trying to recapture a lost life,” he continued hollowly. “It seemed worth the risk.”

  All thought of apology vanished. She stood abruptly, knocking her chair back, eyes very wide. “That isn’t possible, Magnus.”

  “I had reason to believe it might be. One of the books you left… I presume you hadn’t begun to copy it, yet. It was a Hibernica.”

  A chill danced up Aurelia’s spine. “A forgery. None of Hibernica’s work survived the Schism.”

  “Perhaps. I followed the procedure precisely as written, and you’ve seen the result. I was not successful. It moves about well enough and follows commands, but it’s no more intelligent than a well-trained dog. I feel rather foolish, giving it a human’s shape.”

  Aurelia swallowed hard, her promise to Henryk tightening her throat. Magnus would not learn that he was wrong. Not from her.

  “Whom were you trying to resurrect?”

  “You’re not looking very steady, magistrix. Let’s finish your first batch of ennoea and return your strength to you.”

  “Magnus?”

  He rose and rang the bell and gestured for her to follow as he moved out of the room.

  “Magnus!”

  He was lying.

  His first attempt had not been the only. Aurelia knew that with no doubt whatsoever, because he was her student, a child of her mind truer than any child of her body, and Aurelia the Unnatural would not have abandoned one of the lost Hibernica texts after a single failure, even if there was almost no chance it was authentic. She would pursue that knowledge until it was certain, no matter how many attempts it took.

  She perched precariously on the edge of her bed, poised between the warm blankets and the cold floor. Her left hand stretched and flexed easily, restored by the ennoea. The first batch had given her back her strength. The little sparks flowed through her veins, enlivening the tissues. The second batch would be enough to see her all the way back home, if she simply left. That wasn’t a possibility. She devoted no energy to considering it. But she would have liked to go, to leave this darkness behind her. Take Helena, perhaps, let her see things more magnificent than Wrocław.

  But Magnus was lying. There had been other attempts, and where were they? Henryk feared being dismantled, his animating force extracted and reused. He’d said it was because he read it in Magnus’s notes and papers, but might it be because he had seen it happen to his siblings?

  Those notes and papers had to be kept somewhere. So did those siblings, or at least their remains.

  Were they crawling through the mountain, twisted by contact with contaminated ennoea?

  Not guards, then. Just more failures.

  But had they come before or after Henryk? And were they dead when Magnus got his hands on them?

  She turned away from that thought, but it could no longer be avoided. She could not believe those monsters were his doing, but she had no choice but to admit the possibility.

  Her feet slid into her slippers, and she retrieved her shotel from beneath the bed.

  She had to steal the journals.

  A lantern with a glass chimney rendered her light phlegm-proof, though she would have been more comfortable with something more reliable than fire.

  She slipped from her room and down again, behind the tapestry, through the cellar, and past the secret door.

  The tunnels were quiet, though she listened hard for footsteps and breath other than her own. Nothing. But there had been nothing, at first, the night before. Something might come when it heard her moving.

  She passed the catacombs and the tunnel that led toward the dungeons.

  There should have been bodies. There should have been severed limbs. The floor was clear.

  She found the little protrusion where she had set her candle before. There should have been blood on the stone. The candle lay there, coated in a gob of drying ooze, but there was nothing else. The monsters wouldn’t have cleaned up after themselves, surely.

  Or perhaps they were simply too hungry to leave a carcass.

  She bent, bringing her lantern close to the stone. There, in a crevice. A dark stain. At least she wasn’t mistaken on that point. They had bled.

  And then their comrades mopped up the ennoea-laden blood of the fallen. She shuddered.

  The tunnel beckoned her downward.

  She remembered the rabbit warren beneath the castle. She’d spent enough time down there in earlier days. There was a fork coming up, and she would have to choose to go left or right. The old laboratory had been to the left. It was a good location. Snowmelt trickled through the soil and stone and formed a clean, clear pool in a nearby chamber before running further down into the mountain and, somewhere, out to the surface to join with the river that bisected the valley. There was a ventilating draft, as well, though they’d never found the shaft out to the mountainside; it must have been very narrow to let in fresh air but no sunlight. That would have been ideal.

  Still, she hesitated at the fork. The old laboratory would have been ideal, but the Orphics would probably have destroyed it. The alchemical apparatus would have been smashed. They would have drained or filled or poisoned the pool. They’d have taken her books. Though apparently not the Hibernica. She felt a twinge at that, the old pain renewing itself. Her books.

  But there had also been a small amount of raw ennoea stored down there, and if the destruction had broken its containment, the entire chamber might be toxic.

  “Ah,” she breathed. That might explain the monsters. Raw, volatile ennoea, mixing with the water of the pool and flowing down into the river, reacting unpredictably, picking up contaminants, infecting the village. Perhaps Magnus truly didn’t have anything to do with them.

  Some small sound rang down the tunnel behind her.

  She turned and looked, raising the lantern high, but nothing had come close enough for her to see, yet. She wouldn’t be taken by surprise, this time. After a few seconds, the sound came again, a faint shuffle and the swish of fabric. She stood still and waited. It would come to her, eventually, and she was not in a hurry.

  But there was another noise, then. That same low moan, rising from the direction of the old laboratory. This time, she could not imagine it was the wind. She turned and stared down the left branch of the fork. There was something down there.

  The darkness rushed her. It came pouring out of the right-hand tunnel, face split by a bony muzzle, reaching for her with long, spidery hands.

  A thunderclap stabbed through the tunnel, sharp as a razor, reverberating from the stone.

  The monster’s arm dropped limply, a floret of mangled muscle and splinters of bone blossoming at its shoulder.

  There was a second report, a second wound opening in its belly, and Aurelia slashed the head from its neck. It fell, and she turned slowly, ears ringing.

  Helena stood stiffly, face pale and lips tight. There was a candle at her feet, a pistol in her hand, and another thrust into the waist of her skirts. She blinked once, then hastily reached into the pouch slung across her shoulder and began to reload.

  “Thank you,” Aurelia said a little numbly.

  Helena nodded. “I heard something, and I thought you’d gone out again, but then I saw the tapestry was askew… I’m sorry it took me so long to work out the secret door. I knew there must be something down here, but I’d never tried to find it.”

  “It’s just as well. There’s certainly more than one of these things, and you only have two shots at a time.”

  Helena bent to pick up her guttered candle and edged closer. “How many more?”

  “I encountered four last night. I think this might have been one of them.”

  “Matko święta. Is this where they live? Is this where they’re coming from?” She looke
d up sharply. “Is that why you’re wandering around armed at night?”

  “There are things I need to know,” Aurelia said grimly.

  “And I,” Helena agreed. She grimaced as she toed at the severed head, rolling it over. Then she frowned. “That’s Jan Pawlik. Or at least part of him.”

  “From the village?”

  She nodded. “He was one of those who came to burn the castle. He’s been dead nine years.”

  The moan came again, stealing both women’s attention.

  “Is that another one?” Helena asked. She hefted her pistol.

  “We should see.” Aurelia wiped her blade clean and sheathed it, then raised the lantern and lifted the chimney, allowing Helena to touch her candle’s wick to the flame. “But the place may be contaminated. Touch nothing, and turn back immediately if I tell you to. Believe me when I say that, however terrible the effect of corrupted ennoea on dead matter, its effect on living tissue does not bear contemplation.”

  Helena’s eyes did not widen. She did not tremble. She only gritted her teeth. “Only if you will turn back with me.”

  “Very well,” Aurelia replied. She could not fulfill her duty if she got herself killed.

  The two crept down the left fork.

  The ground sloped down, then began to rise again, and dark water pooled in the low point. They stepped over carefully. The tunnel turned twice, branched again, and ended at a heavy door.

  Aurelia would have expected damage, the marks of fire or ax or the tumorous, melting burls that sometimes resulted when ennoea touched wood. But the door was intact.

  The moan sounded again, seemingly from every direction at once. It raised goosebumps on Aurelia’s scalp.

  She pushed back the bolt and opened the door.

  It was dark inside, and still.

  The lamp glittered on glass, flasks and tubes and retorts, and shone on brass and steel, none of it muffled by dust. The room looked much as she had left it. That meant the bookcases would be against the far wall, beside the passage that led to the pool. The journals. And perhaps that cursed Hibernica forgery.

  As Aurelia stepped down into the chamber, her attention was drawn into the corner that had been concealed behind the opened door. The light of her lamp brushed the smooth surface of an enormous crystalline sphere. It must have been twice her height—more, with its iron stand, cushioned by a thick ring of gum rubber. It was filled with a milky, opaque liquid that glimmered and undulated like pearl dust. But there was something… There. Was that a shape in the depths? There was something in there.