Heart of Steel

by Meljean Brook

  In a nightdress that came to his knees, Ollivier was silent until they reached the door. Then he tried for outrage. “This is an affront to my dignity, Mr. Fox. If you don’t want to share the credit of the find—”

  “There’s no find yet, Mr. Ollivier. Now close your mouth until we reach the stateroom, or I’ll cut out your tongue.”

  Archimedes wouldn’t, actually; the whole point of this was for the man to talk. A toe would do just as well. A finger. The head of his prick—which, apparently, had begun dribbling piss during the short walk to Hassan’s stateroom.

  On second thought, the tongue would be fine. Ollivier could write his answers.

  He wasn’t surprised to find Yasmeen already in Hassan’s cabin, heating a pot of tea over the small gas burner. How had she fastened her boots so damn quickly? Obviously Archimedes would have to practice.

  “Sit here, Mr. Ollivier,” Hassan said, gesturing to the chair opposite his. “I thought we might have some tea.”

  Shaking, Ollivier sat.

  Hassan poured his cup. “You’ll forgive me if I only watch. My French is poor.”

  “A scream for mercy sounds the same in any language,” Yasmeen said, sliding the teacup across the table. “Did you make it strong, Mr. Ollivier? His nanoagents fought off the poisons, but what about you? What would a sip of this do?”

  “I don’t know what you’re speaking of.”

  Yasmeen smiled.

  “Very well.” Ollivier wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “What is it you want to know?”

  Archimedes took the chair next to him. “We want to know why.”

  “Because I was hired to.”

  “By whom, Mr. Ollivier?”

  The man was breathing hard, sweating. “I was given orders by the marsouins. But al-Amazigh is paying me.”

  Hassan’s expression didn’t change. “Kareem al-Amazigh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Yasmeen asked.

  “He doesn’t trust Mr. Hassan. Your association to Temür Agha is too close.” He spoke directly to Hassan. “He believes you will eventually betray him.”

  God. Then al-Amazigh didn’t know Hassan at all. Archimedes shook his head. “Then why this expedition? Why not a more direct assassination?”

  “Temür Agha is a powerful man, Mr. Fox. Al-Amazigh wanted the death to appear natural, the result of sickness, so that there would be no retaliation.”

  “But he also needs the money,” Hassan said. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. So he hired me to look for the treasures.”

  Archimedes leaned forward. “Al-Amazigh didn’t want me included on the expedition, initially, because of my association with Temür. Are you supposed to kill me, too?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “That is not mine to do.”

  Yasmeen hissed. “Whose is it?”

  “The marsouins’. After the expedition is over.”

  Archimedes looked to Hassan. The man showed little, but he’d had years of practice concealing his emotions.

  “Al-Amazigh must desperately want that money,” Yasmeen said.

  “I do not know,” Ollivier said. “I was not told more.”

  A feral expression slipped over her face, lips drawing back over sharp teeth. “And what of Lady Corsair?”

  “I don’t . . . What of her?”

  “Two months ago, she was boarded in Port Fallow and my crew slaughtered. Do you know anything of that, Mr. Ollivier?”

  “No.” He shook his head emphatically. “No. Two months past, I was in Martinique. I did not even speak to Bigor until six weeks ago.”

  “Why you?” Archimedes said. “You have no name for yourself in this field. You sympathized with the Liberé. How did they know to choose you for the expedition?”

  “Bigor discovered me dosing the coffee in a noble’s house. He was there for another reason, and couldn’t risk the questions raised by my disappearance if he had killed me. But he has known of me since then. He remembered.” His hands clenched on the table, tears filling his eyes. “I was done with this! For ten years, I have only studied, taught. I wanted my name to be spoken in the same breath as da Vinci—but not like this!”

  “Come now,” Archimedes said. “You wouldn’t have minded that so much.”

  Ollivier wiped his eyes. “No. In truth, no. It would be worth it. Or even to have it spoken in the same breath as Archimedes Fox.”

  Yasmeen grinned, leaned across the table, raised the teacup to his lips. “How about, ‘Vincent Ollivier, slain by Archimedes Fox’s wife’?”

  “Oh, God, please no—”

  “Stop.” She pulled back, her eyes hard, no humor left. “Understand this, Mr. Ollivier: You are leaving this cabin alive tonight. You are to give no indication that we’ve spoken of this. If you must, poison yourself to give the appearance of sickness, and remain in your bunk for the remainder of the expedition. Can you do that?”

  “Yes. Yes, yes.”

  “Wonderful.” She stood, gestured to the door. “Go now. And sleep well, Mr. Ollivier.”

  After the smile she gave him, Archimedes would be surprised if the man ever slept again. He waited at the door, watched Ollivier enter his cabin before turning back to the others.

  “So, al-Amazigh has arranged to kill us all,” he said, and looked to Hassan. “Why? Do you think Ollivier knew the truth of it?”

  Tiredly, the old man shook his head. “I could not say. It is true that he worried about your association to Temür, but of mine? He must know I would not compromise the freedom of our people. Perhaps it was to keep some other truth from me.”

  “And what of the marsouins?” Yasmeen asked. “Do you know how or when he became acquainted with them?”

  “Yes. There is a man—a weapons smuggler, the one who will provide the explosives for the tower. He told Kareem of the marsouins , and said that if ever he needed to complete a job, they were the men to contact. This was several months ago. Kareem has contacted them several times, I believe.”

  “What is the smuggler’s name? Do you recall?”

  “Of course. He is called Mattson.”

  Miracle Mattson, who Yasmeen had shot in his sister’s home. He watched her eyes close as the full realization swept over her. Mattson had known of the da Vinci sketch, and must have told Bigor and his men—or perhaps he’d told al-Amazigh, and the rebel had sent in the marines to collect the sketch. They must have reached her strongbox before the timer closed, then attempted to erase the evidence by blowing her ship.

  A short expedition, and much more lucrative than the current one. Though the sketch was a fake, Yasmeen’s gold had not been.

  Had al-Amazigh discovered that he possessed a forgery? Had he heard of the sketch that Temür Agha had now . . . or, even if he had heard, did he think Archimedes had found two?

  “Hassan,” she said, and he heard the roughness in her voice, the pain that must be lodged deep within. “How did al-Amazigh pay for this expedition? How did he pay for the marsouins?”

  “He went to Port Fallow three months ago to sell the jewelry that I gave to him. Temür has been generous to me these many years. I had a small collection.”

  A small collection wouldn’t amount to much—and probably not enough to fund an expedition. But the final connection slid into place. “Did he sell the jewelry through Franz Kessler?”

  “That I do not know.”

  “How long was he in Port Fallow?”

  “A month or so.” Clearly troubled, he glanced from Archimedes to Yasmeen. “There is something here you have not said. Is this what you asked of Ollivier—about Lady Corsair?”

  Her mouth tight, Yasmeen nodded.

  “You believe al-Amazigh ordered it? That Bigor’s men carried it out?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It begins to seem that way.”

  He tapped the ends of his broad fingers together, his face thoughtful. “Will you kill them tonight?”

  “I haven’t decided.” She banged her fist on the table. “Godd
ammit. If we were not aboard this ship, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  Because of the precarious tension within the crew, Archimedes realized—surprised, he had to admit, that it was even a consideration for her.

  “I understand that this is not my place,” Hassan said carefully. “But I would ask that you wait. If they have no plans to kill you and your husband until after some treasure is secured, then you are safe until then. Perhaps, in the meantime, I can discover more about why Kareem has chosen this route.”

  Archimedes wasn’t so certain. He cared much less about al-Amazigh’s plans than he did Yasmeen’s life. “And what if Ollivier gives us away?”

  “Then I suspect Bigor will be surprised by your wife’s capabilities. You probably ought not to be with them by yourselves, however. Tomorrow morning, we will be over Brindisi.”

  The site of their next search. “We’ll go down alone,” Archimedes said.

  In their cabin, Yasmeen lit one of their few remaining cigarillos and paced while Archimedes settled onto the bottom bunk. Sleeping together now. That was all right. That was good. That was the only damn thing that was good—

  Pain struck at her chest. She paced faster, but couldn’t outrun it. She dug her fingers into her hair, tried to stop it, but the agony only settled in her throat, welled tears in her eyes. Instead of standing there, shaking, she crushed out the cigarillo and slid in next to Archimedes, and he wrapped her in his arms as she cried silently against his throat.

  He kissed the top of her head, simply held her until she stopped. “You wanted to kill them tonight.”

  She wanted her crew back tonight. But she’d have settled for ripping out throats, tasting their blood and pain.

  “Yes,” she said, and rolled onto her back, relit the cigarillo. She passed it to him when he came up on his elbow. “But I can be patient.”

  Though he didn’t make a sound, she felt his laugh against her side. She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “You doubt me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re wrong.” She plucked the cigarillo from his lips. “And you also take a very long time to pass this back.”

  He grinned.

  “I said that to make you laugh,” she told him. “You didn’t get the better of me.”

  His smile became tender, and he brushed a stray hair from her forehead. “No. You have definitely gotten the better of me. This might be the wrong time to tell you, I don’t know.”

  “Tell me what?”

  He took a deep breath. “I love you.”

  Oh. Her lips parted. He slipped the cigarillo from between her teeth, bent his head. His mouth brushed hers, so sweet. When she lifted to deepen the kiss, he drew back.

  That was it? Yet, in its perfect way, enough.

  Smiling, she lay her head on the pillow again. Despite everything, she felt almost settled now. She would be patient. She would avenge her crew.

  And she would hold the heart of Archimedes Fox very, very close.

  “Not the wrong time at all,” she said.

  Why had he never been to Brindisi before? Aside from the zombies, it was a near-perfect city, full of churches and forts and castles whose thick walls stood for hundreds of years without crumbling to ruins. Clear turquoise waters filled the harbor, and on one of the islands—free of zombies—sat an enormous red structure that had been called only “Sea Fort” in Ollivier’s notes.

  It was far more than that—it was a hoard of relics worth salvaging. Archimedes only picked a few to take back to Ceres; finding nothing at all would raise suspicions, and too many would be a treasure and a signal for Bigor to kill him. So he found small painted icons in the chapel, and would return later for the altarpiece. He found a faded tapestry, and left a sundial in the shape of a lute.

  But although Hassan might have been satisfied by the few things he’d brought back to the ship, Archimedes knew not to stop there. They had discussed Brindisi with Bigor before they’d learned of his connection to Mattson, so the marine was aware that several locations in the port city were to be explored. He and Yasmeen dutifully crept through a church, and he found a diptych of an archangel and the Virgin, and a lead bowl plated with gold.

  If it had been solid gold, he’d have left it.

  He could have easily spent weeks here, but he settled on two days. They remained out until after midnight the first day, and almost immediately dropped into sleep on return to Ceres. He woke to the cracking of Yasmeen’s knees. As soon as she loosened up, they scouted a new building from the airship and went down again, lowering the rope ladder to the roof. After a cursory search, they climbed back up, scouted another building, then a castle overlooking the harbor. A number of zombies milled around in the courtyard, so many that it took Archimedes a few moments to recognize what they were milling around. His heart thumped against his chest, and his head swam.

  Yasmeen caught his arm. “Archimedes?”

  He forced the excitement from his expression, though he wanted to shout and laugh. In a low voice, he said, “It is his crane.”

  “What?”

  “The pile of rotted wood below. Do you see the shape of the iron that used to bind it, the giant wheel, the long arm? It’s a machine for lifting. I saw a replica of da Vinci’s sketch once. This is his crane, almost exactly.”

  “Ah.” She studied the shattered remains. “So what was he lifting?”

  Archimedes almost didn’t care. He wanted to slide down into the courtyard, simply touch the iron. But the number of zombies made that impossible, at least until he returned. He judged the length of the crane arm, followed the arc of it in his mind.

  “There.” He pointed to the curtain wall nearest to the harbor. “Something could be lifted to the top of the wall and taken into that tower.”

  “All right.” She met his eyes. “There’s a lot of stairs.”

  She was right. The castle didn’t possess a regular, symmetrical structure, but sprawled across different levels of walls, towers, halls, and courtyards. Stairs running up the side of the curtain walls gave zombies easy access to the tower—there were already several stumbling along the stone walkway atop the wall.

  “We kill those, then we make certain we’re quiet,” he said.

  They did, and even better, the tower had a door—partially rotted, but intact, so that if any more zombies climbed up to the wall, they wouldn’t see Archimedes and Yasmeen moving around inside. So long as they were quiet, they shouldn’t capture the zombies’ attention.

  They waved the airship away and went inside. The tower had been designed for defense. The chamber was round, with only a few small openings set at an angle high in the thick stone walls—shafts for ventilation, perhaps, or to let the light in. Dust and stone debris covered a slate floor. Feathers were scattered about, the remains of nests visible in the ventilation shafts and the rafters. Heaps of old cloth had molded in piles and gave home to mice that scattered when he lifted one dark, stiff edge. A bed had collapsed on itself—and on the far side of it, lying on the floor, he found the clockwork man.

  “Yasmeen,” he whispered, and slipped to his knees.

  He felt her fingers against his shoulder, heard her sharp breath.

  Shoulders of iron and the gear guts had rusted. A copper pendulum at the heart had tarnished and warped. The fingers were nothing but steel tubes, the arms a system of pulleys whose ropes had long disintegrated. It had no legs and no head. Just a torso with arms, partially finished and abandoned—it was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen.

  And they had to leave it here.

  “Ah, God,” he said. “Ah, God.”

  She crouched beside him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders. “We’ll come back for it.”

  He slipped out of her arms and lay on the floor. “I’ll stay and guard it.”

  Yasmeen snorted softly, her half laugh quickly muffled. “You don’t even—”

  The crack of a gunshot sounded outside. Archimedes sat up, pulse racing. He stared into Yasmeen’s eyes,
saw the same shock and surprise.

  “Was that from the airship?” she whispered.

  The airship that was hovering over the harbor, not far from the tower—and the curtain wall lay in a direct line between Ceres and the zombies that would be rushing to investigate the sound.

  Over the pounding of his heart came the pounding of feet, the moans and growls. Jesus. He raced for the door. Thank God, thank God, it opened inward—though chunks were missing in the rotted wood, big enough to shove hands through. With enough pressure, those holes would likely become bigger.

  It couldn’t be helped. He braced the door with his weight, set his feet. “Is there another way out?”

  But Yasmeen was already racing through the room, feeling along the walls, looking for one. She turned back to him, eyes wide. “No.”

  “Take my grap—”

  The first zombie hit. The thud reverberated through his back, but he held fast. Yasmeen shoved her palms against the door beside his shoulders, adding her weight.

  “My grapnel,” he said, and two more rammed into the door. Or the same one, with a friend. His boots skidded, just a tiny bit—and he could hear more coming over the ravenous growls. “The ventilation shafts. We’ll climb out.”

  Maybe. The openings weren’t big.

  “All right. Go,” she said. “Shoot it.”

  No, no. She hadn’t—

  “Archimedes.” She met his eyes. “You’ve practiced shooting that launcher; I haven’t. I’ll hold the door. You’ll need to go up first, anyway, because the second person is going to have to sprint and climb—and I’m faster.”

  “I’m stronger.” And the zombies weren’t hitting the door now, but piling against it—pushing, pushing.

  “Yes. So you’ll need to be fast,” she said.

  Goddamn it. But he nodded. “On three, we switch.”

  At her nod, he counted. She slipped smoothly into his place, feet braced, jaw clenched with effort. An emaciated arm snaked through a hole, grasping hand waving near her leg.