The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 3

by George Mann

“A positive thinker,” Jacob muttered. “You’ll do well in the Council.”

  “It’s not my place to sit the Council. Nor was it Micol’s. Our roles were chosen for us, and others were set up for the Council.”

  “I remember now,” Jacob said. “The two eldest sons of Stitch were killed, right? Hunting accident. But Micol must have gotten away.”

  “Micol escaped, yes. Our brother David, though... he’s well and truly gone.”

  “Strange I suppose, but convenient. Cover up your brother’s disappearance with the other’s death. My father would have liked that.” Jacob smiled, then the color drained from his face as he had a thought. “Unless—”

  “No, Jacob Burn. Micol didn’t kill David, if that’s what you’re thinking. My brother was no murderer.”

  “He’s done his share. He killed the Family Vellis.”

  “Did he?” Magdalene looked up and laughed, a high, light sound out of place in her tired face. “Well, that’s something. It’s something, indeed.”

  “Did they have something to do with it? Your brother’s death?”

  “No,” she said, then tore off a heel of bread and ate it slowly, piece by piece. “Tell me, how did you get involved in this?”

  “I’m Valentine’s man. Micol and I both were. What Micol did, first taking you then tearing through Vellis, it had the Council in a fury. They thought it was Valentine behind it. He sent me to fix it.”

  “So is it fixed? You’ve found me, Micol’s dead. Will that satisfy the Council?”

  “Perhaps. But I still want to know why all this happened.”

  “It happened because Micol was trying to be a good brother. Trying to look out for his little sister. He left the family, Mr. Burn, because there were certain sacrifices he wasn’t willing to make.” She set down her glass of wine and closed her eyes. “He came back because he was not willing to let me make the same sacrifice, when it came to me. He kidnapped me, took me to the cisterns, hid me. He said he’d be back, and then we’d be going up the river.” She opened her eyes again, and the stare she gave Jacob could have cut steel. “To someplace more civilized. Someplace my family couldn’t find us.”

  “What sacrifice?” Jacob asked, nervously. Magdalene shifted her eyes to the door. The color in her face was leaking out slowly.

  “There are things under the Manor Stitch, Jacob Burn. Old things. Found things. They offer a service, and demand a price.”

  “What things? If they’re so horrible, why not just leave, yourself? Surely your family’s reach isn’t so great—”

  “He took me to the cisterns,” she cut in, as though she couldn’t hear Jacob at all, “because he said they wouldn’t be able to find me there. And for a while I hoped, and I waited. And they came, and you.”

  “The Badge? They.said something about a map, from a source. Is Micol the source, could he still be alive? Girl, listen to me, could your brother have told them where you were?”

  “That was when I knew Micolas was dead. That they had him, and read him, and were coming to get me. And if I can’t hide in the cisterns, I’ll hide in the city. But you can’t hide from it in the city. My brother knew that.”

  “Hide from what?”

  Magdalene laid her arms on the table, palms flat against the rough wood. Her face was completely white now, and her head was inclined to the door, as though she could hear someone approach. Jacob was standing, and didn’t remember having pushed back his chair.

  “The Stitcher,” she said. She breathed deeply, trying to calm her racing heart. “I won’t be running, Jacob. But you may want to consider it.”

  There were footsteps outside. The door burst open.

  A corpse walked into the room, but not a corpse, a metal cage in the shape of a man, articulated, and inside a body pinned in place by iron and wire. An axle punched through its chest at the heart, turning slowly, powering the wheels and gears of the cage. Other gearwork bristled out of the body, the teeth of gears and oiled shafts of pistons meshing with bone and scarred flesh. The corpse was bloated and white, like it had been drowned in some lab. Its eyes were snow white, and a complicated mass of gears filled its mouth. The air seemed to vibrate with an unheard cacophony, a noise that passed beyond human ken but was still felt in teeth and heart. Jacob cringed and collapsed away from the table, pitching over his discarded chair as he fumbled for his revolver.

  The air in Jacob’s head hardened. His voice betrayed him. He and Magdalene spoke as one.

  “Magdalene Stitch,” they said. “Your soul is in tune with ours. Did you think to outrun us? Return to the manor, to your duty.”

  Jacob realized that it was the thing, the corpse, speaking through them. He retched up bread and wine, clutched the pistol in his wavering hand. Magdalene stood and, with a sorrowful nod to Jacob, went out into the street. The corpse turned to Jacob.

  “And you, meddler,” Jacob said in the iron cold voice that was not his own. “Your life is forfeit.”

  Before the thing could move, Jacob launched himself up and out the window opposite the door. He hit the cobbled street and rolled up onto his feet. He ran, voices behind him and gunshots, the hot sting of bullets passing close, around the corner and he ran and ran, bile and an alien voice still in his mouth.

  VALENTINE LISTENED TO his story in silence, his over-large hands drumming on the table. When Jacob finished, the clockwork man became absolutely still. His hidden engines worked loudly, but there was no movement outside. Jacob sat uncomfortably, waiting.

  “By saving her you may have condemned her,” Valentine said after several minutes. “And by interfering you may have condemned us all. Before, there was talk that Micol was acting under my orders, because he was my man. Now, another of my men is found with the girl. Hiding, in one of my safe houses. And when he runs away,” Valentine tilted his head slightly, to look Jacob in the eye. “He runs to me.”

  “Magdalene knows I wasn’t involved. She knows that her brother was acting on his own. Surely she’ll say that.”

  “She knows, but what will she tell her family? And what will they believe?”

  “Surely the Family Stitch knew the truth of it from the beginning. Micol was their son, exiled. If there was some sacrifice he was unwilling to make, and then that burden falls to his sister, and he comes and takes her... Surely they knew you wouldn’t be involved in that.”

  Valentine thought for a minute. “Perhaps. And now that the girl is back, perhaps the Council will back off. Your friendship with Micol is known. They may think you were acting in his interest, rather than mine.”

  “Something I’m sure you considered when you chose me.”

  Valentine smiled. He stood and crossed to the door. “We will let the matter lie. Speak to no one of our meetings. Let us hope the Council does the same.”

  “The girl spoke with genuine fear, Sir. There is something horrible waiting for her beneath the Manor Stitch.”

  “That is her burden, Jacob. As it was Micol’s, and he is dead. She could have run, but did not. Let her bear it. You have your own troubles to attend. Leave her to hers.”

  Valentine went out, leaving Jacob alone in the dark room. He crossed his hands on the table before him. He was silent for several minutes.

  “I will not,” he whispered.

  STITCH MADE THEIR money in the banker’s districts, in Goldstones and Hybull, in the shifting speculative dens of Three Bells, but they made their home in Cuttington. An ivory castle in a pile of shit. Cuttington was for slaughterhouses and livemarts, the cattle and goats carted off the barges and funneled out the Ebd-side gates without ever setting hoof or horn in the city proper.

  “Odd place for a manor,” Jacob muttered to himself as he shuffled past, moving with the warehouse shift change. The squalor went right up to the walls of the manor. Jacob remembered that this had been the family holding before the Stitch made any money, though smaller. A hovel that the family worked into a fortune. Talk was that they kept the address to draw a sharp contrast between thems
elves and the founding families, with their ridge-borne mansions and their gardened estates.

  A bad address hadn’t kept the Stitch from building grand. The walls were rough white stone topped with iron spikes. As he passed the gate, Jacob got a look at the grounds. The property had the desperate ostentation of the newly rich. It would have been Micol and Magdalene’s grandfather who first claimed Family Rights, traded gold and commerce for a little political influence on the Council. Buying out the writs of two other families, though, was quite a step forward in such a short time.

  Jacob stopped by the gate and adjusted his coat. It had taken the last of his meager cash to get the suit of clothes mended and refitted. It was out of fashion, but at least it was clean and well trimmed.

  “Off with you,” said a gruff voice from behind the gate. A guard had strolled out of his shuttered house, a shortrifle cradled in his arms. Jacob was surprised. At the Manor Burn, the guards’ weapons were more discreetly held, though no less deadly for their subtlety.

  Jacob nodded through to the manor. The lights were all on, and gentlemen mingled on the front stoop as carriages unloaded their passengers. Laughter and song drifted down the wide drive to the gate.

  “I’m here for the party, the occasion of Lady Magdalene’s birthday.” Finding out about the party had been a stroke of luck. Jacob wondered if his sister turning eighteen had something to do with Micol’s actions.

  The guard wrinkled his brow. The other guests were all showing up in carriages or by private zep-pelin. Gentlemen of rank did not stroll up to the front gate on foot.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but this is an invitation event,” the guard said, shifting the rifle to a more demure sighting. “Do you have an invitation?”

  “Not specifically, but I claim the Right of Family.” Jacob flashed a coin, the gold plated sigil of his family, in the palm of his hand. It was a forgery, of course. His father had confiscated all of Jacob’s rights. “I am Jacob Burn, son of Alexander, formerly of the Highship Fastidious.”

  The man shuffled his feet. “Crawled out from under your rock, eh?”

  “Now, now. Does the Family Stitch have the sort of standing to refuse entrance to Founder’s blood?”

  The party continued loudly in the background. The guard’s rifle shifted from one arm to the other, sweeping over Jacob as it went. The guard looked like he was doing some heavy political arithmetic. Jacob’s only fear was that Magdalene had been too thorough in her accounting of the event surrounding her rescue, and that the guards would be on the lookout for one Jacob Burn. It was a chance he had to take.

  Eventually the guard went back to his house and threw a lever. The gate clacked open, too tightly for Jacob to get through comfortably. When it was clear that the man wasn’t going to give him any more space, Jacob squeezed through.

  “You’ll leave your piece here, though,” the guard said, shortrifle nowhere to be seen.

  “I think you’ll find that I am unarmed.” Jacob said, holding his arms wide to show his empty belt. “But feel free to check.”

  To Jacob’s surprise, the man leaned in and patted down his arms and torso.

  “Fair enough. Make no trouble and you’ll find no grief. Enjoy the hospitality of the Manor Stitch.”

  “Of course, of course.” Jacob smiled and rearranged his vest. “I’m only here for the party. I love a good party.”

  THE HALL WAS brilliantly lit. Alchemical vats were set around the windows, disguised as flower pots, gently cloaking the smell of the district without smothering the guests in a false perfume. The lords and ladies of Veridon were out in force, moving through the hall in delicate cycles of social engineering. Jacob tumbled through like a cog that has slipped its teeth.

  Every group he approached went quiet. He knew most of them, of course, though years had changed faces and fashions. And they knew him. Of course they knew him.

  It wasn’t long before his father found him.

  “What are you doing here?” the old man hissed. “What damn game is this?”

  Jacob looked at his father, trying to keep his smile in place. Alexander was finely dressed, the coat and vest hinting at their origin in last year’s fashions, but cleverly reimagined, rebuilt, to blend in with the popular cuts of the season. Jacob wondered what tailor had performed that miracle. That was the Family Burn, anymore. Enough money to appear respectable, but no more.

  “I’m attending a party, father.”

  “I swear to you, if you misstep, if you do anything to embarrass me at this affair...”

  “Since when did a Burn care about what one of the merchant families thought? Are the vaults really that empty?”

  Alexander grimaced, grabbing his son by the vest and looking around before drawing him close.

  “Leave the politics to me, child. There are more pieces in play than money and lineage, especially tonight. Now. What are you doing out of your slums?”

  “I said. There is a party. I thought I’d put in an appearance. Wish the Lady Magdalene well on her day.” Jacob waved to a couple who were doing a bad job of not staring. “Surely there’s no harm in that?”

  “There is a great deal of harm,” the elder Burn tugged on his son’s vest to make the point, “in you making a fool of yourself in this company. Making a fool of me.”

  Jacob patted his father’s arresting hand, then pried the fingers away, one at a time. “I’ll leave the politics of foolmaking to you, dear man. Now, people are staring, aren’t they?”

  Alexander looked around at all the people explicitly not looking at them, not talking, not making a scene. He sighed and turned away from Jacob.

  “Just watch yourself,” he hissed over his shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.

  Jacob straightened his cuffs, lay flat his ruffled vest, and looked around for the bar.

  “I assure you, father, I will,” Jacob muttered to himself. “There’s no one else to do it.”

  THERE WERE THINGS Jacob needed. He found his drink, and a quiet corner to watch the noble traffic. Important steps, but the critical steps were still ahead. He still needed to find whatever horror had driven Micol from his family and, years later, to kidnap his sister and murder the Family Vellis. And once he found that little gem, Jacob suspected he might need a gun.

  Not bringing his piece had been a calculated risk. He wasn’t even sure the guard would let him in, Right of Family or not. Any weapon he had carried openly would have been confiscated, and, with the sort of measures Jacob intended to take tonight, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be leaving by the front gate. Jacob loved his little collection of irons. He had no intention of abandoning any of them in a guardhouse. He could have snuck in a pistol, but that was just asking for complication. A hidden pistol found by the guard would have guaranteed a short night, and probably a sound beating for effect.

  Jacob finished his drink and looked around the room. Fashions had changed, he mused. There was a certain similarity to the gentlemen’s dress this evening. Three, no four of the men standing closest to Jacob were wearing almost the exact same clothes. In fact, Jacob thought as he straightened up, it’s almost as if they were in uniform.

  The guards edged closer, not looking at Jacob, but not letting anyone get close to him, nor providing him any efficient means of escape. Finally one of them met his eye and nodded.

  “Ah,” Jacob said. “Of course. Loudly, or quietly?”

  The guard slipped his coat aside to reveal a leather-wrapped truncheon.

  “Quietly, then.” Jacob said. He set down his glass and let the guards lead him away.

  To Jacob’s growing surprise, they didn’t throw him out. He was escorted to an inner room, away from the crowds. It looked like a bedroom, but most of the furniture had been pushed against the walls and the rug rolled up. There were two doors, the one they had come in and another that looked like a servants entrance. Jacob stood in the middle of the floor. There were three guards, clubs out. Big men.

  “What are you doing here?”
the first guy asked.

  “I’m here for the party. Just like everyone else.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, grinding his palm with the sap. “None of us do.”

  “None of you. Well, that’s... it’s awkward. If you’ll ask the lady, I’m sure...”

  “We’re not asking the lady. We’re asking you. Now, what are you...”

  Jacob had been inching forward, one shuffled step at a time. While the lead guard had been making a show of being tough and armed, Jacob had gotten close and desperate enough. He stepped into a tight half step, swinging his fist in a close arc that held all the strength Jacob could manage at that distance. He put that strength into the other man’s throat, then whirled his other arm down to pluck the truncheon out of the guard’s nerveless fingers.

  The guard sat down heavily and oofed. Jacob twisted at the hips, drove the club into his temple, and then dived sideways to avoid the other two guards, who were charging and swinging in equal measure. They ran into each other, stumbled over their comrade.

  Jacob slid into a dresser, heavy on his shoulder. He jumped to his feet and laid into the nearest guard’s back, striking with short, fast swings, the power coming from his shoulders and hips, working his way from kidney to ribs and up until he rolled the tip of the baton into the back of the man’s head. Two down, and the room smelled like blood and vomit.

  The last one stood and swung, a long scything blow that came up from the floor and glanced off Jacob’s elbow. His arm went numb and he dropped the club. The man was swinging again, down, the weighted pommel striking toward Jacob’s face. Jacob threw himself forward, inside the arc of the blow, the man’s biceps coming into Jacob’s shoulder and sliding heavily off, the baton striking loosely against Jacob’s head, rattling teeth. Jacob stumbled but kept his feet, clawing weakly at the man’s collars, making short kicks to try to unbalance his opponent. The guard tried to push him away, but Jacob held close, desperate to stay away from the powerful arc of that club.

  Eventually the guard took the truncheon in both hands and pushed it into Jacob’s belly. Jacob started to go down, but held himself up with one arm, twisted in the complicated lapels of the other man’s uniform. The guard leaned forward, Jacob’s weight nearly toppling him, but then stood up and dragged Jacob with him.