Clockwork Fairy Tales - A Collection Of Steampunk Fables

by Stephen L. Antczak

  Maroushka jumped up next to his head. “He’s still waiting, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “That Tatar guy. Petro. He’s been waiting a long time.”

  Vasyl tensed. “He should have gone home.”

  “Hm.” Maroushka stretched, which made little clattering noises. “Why’s he hanging around? Do tell.”

  “He’s worried about me, I suppose.”

  “That’s sweet,” Maroushka purred. “How does it make you feel?”

  It wasn’t the sort of question Vasyl would normally answer, certainly not from a mechanical cat, but he was so tired, and Maroushka’s voice was soft and sympathetic, and he’d been the listener all his life. Now he had an invitation to talk. “It’s…nice, actually. Knowing someone cares enough to wait.”

  “I don’t understand these things very much,” Maroushka said. “Me, I’m bitchin’ with that fuel. But you humans need people to talk to. What’s so special about this particular guy?”

  Sleep blurred Vasyl’s words. “He’s stronger than I am. And he’s always there when I need him. And he’ll tell me when I’m being foolish. And…he has…deep…eyes.”

  “Deep eyes? What the hell does that mean?”

  But Vasyl was asleep.

  “Hm,” Maroushka said. “So, what’s your deal, Broom?”

  But Broom hadn’t been ordered to answer, and remained silent.

  “Today,” Baba Yaga said, “you need to cook for me. And tomorrow I’ll have another task for you, and then I’ll give you your mechanical. How’s that sound?”

  “Wonderful!” Vasyl made a fist around his bandage and did some quick calculations against the can in his backpack. It should just work. “What do you want for supper?”

  “This.” Baba Yaga pulled a lever, and an entire side of beef dropped from the shadows in the ceiling. It landed on the table with a crash and a splatter of warm blood. As an afterthought, three dead chickens followed, landing like dreadful snowflakes. Vasyl gaped and backed away.

  “Get to it,” Baba Yaga said. “Or it’s you in the pot.” The workroom door slammed behind her.

  “You’ll find knives in that drawer,” Maroushka said.

  Vasyl wiped the blood from his face and regained his composure. He slashed his palm again, gasping at the pain of reopening the half-healed wound, mixed blood and paraffin oil in Broom’s fuel tank, and said, “Broom, butcher this meat and cook it!”

  Maroushka and Vasyl stood back while Broom hacked and chopped so fast the knife blades blurred. Fat and feathers flew. Vasyl rewrapped his bleeding hand and pressed his back against a wall. It felt as if he had been here for weeks instead of hours, and despite Broom’s and Maroushka’s presence, he felt horribly alone. He longed to hear Petro’s voice, feel that rough embrace around his neck.

  “You’re kidding yourself if you think she doesn’t know something’s funny here,” Maroushka said.

  “So? I’m not breaking any rules,” Vasyl said. “Broom’s a tool, just like a loom or a water pump.”

  “Or a knife.”

  Broom’s bone cleaver whacked through a section of rib at that moment, and Vasyl flinched. Maroushka held out a paw and studied her claws as if something interesting might be caught in them.

  Uneasy, Vasyl changed the subject. “Is Petro still outside by the fence?”

  “No,” Maroushka said flatly.

  “Oh.” Vasyl felt sad, even abandoned. “He couldn’t stay out all night, I suppose. Not with Olena at home.”

  “Is Olena his mother or his sister?”

  “His daughter.”

  “Really?” Maroushka sounded surprised. “Well, don’t that beat all?”

  “What does that mean?”

  But Maroushka didn’t answer.

  When Baba Yaga burst out of her workroom several hours later, the enormous kitchen table was piled high with steaks and roasts and ribs and baked chicken and the kettle on the stove brimmed with stew. Savory smells filled the cottage. Broom sat in the corner, hands folded. Vasyl couldn’t help a thin smile at Baba Yaga’s consternation.

  “Hm,” Baba Yaga grumped. “Looks adequate.”

  And she fell to eating. In moments, she had chewed her way through every morsel on the table, bones and all, and she emptied the kettle in one long gulp. Vasyl was glad he had already eaten—the witch didn’t leave behind a single tendon or bit of gristle. And when she was done, she was as thin as ever.

  “Tomorrow,” Baba Yaga said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, “you’ll finish my weaving for me.”

  Vasyl shot a glance at the enormous loom in the corner and the tangled mess that spilled out of it. Had his mother taught Broom to weave? He couldn’t remember. Vasyl himself certainly didn’t know how. His hand tightened around the bloody bandage and he swallowed.

  “All right,” he said uneasily. “How’s the mechanical coming?”

  “Glad you asked. I need your…input.”

  “Input?” The word was unfamiliar to Vasyl. “What do you mean?”

  In answer, Baba Yaga flung the door to her workshop open and gestured for Vasyl to follow her inside. Vasyl hesitated. No one had ever seen the inside of Baba Yaga’s workshop and lived to tell the tale. Why was she bringing him in? To kill him? On the other hand, if she wanted to do that, she could do it at any time. And curiosity pulled him forward. Baba Yaga’s workshop would be a place of wonder. He took a breath and stepped through the open door.

  A wave of heat met him, and an alarm bell clanged. Vasyl flung his hands over his ears.

  “Oops,” Baba Yaga said, and shouted something Vasyl didn’t catch. The bell stopped. “Alarm goes off whenever anything living enters my workshop, so don’t get any ideas about swiping a souvenir.”

  “Uh…sure.” Vasyl was sweating now. The source of the heat was a forge that squatted like a demon in the center of the huge room. An anvil floated before it, and nearby sat the huge brass pestle and metal mortar with its strange engines mounted on the back. Two kegs of what Vasyl assumed was fuel waited nearby, and Vasyl nervously wondered why Baba Yaga would store something flammable so close to her forge.

  Stone worktables of varying heights were scattered everywhere, including the walls, ceiling, and floor. Racks of gleaming tools stood among them, also clinging to the walls and ceiling. Vasyl turned, trying to look everywhere at once. Every table was covered with machines, cogs, pistons, and parts. Brass gleamed, steam puffed, and sparks spat. An army of mechanical spiders skittered about every surface, some of them making adjustments to the half-built machinery, others delivering bits and parts. Vasyl dodged a trio of them carrying the head of a mechanical St. Bernard. A tall metal arch in one corner glowed, while the interior flickered through a dozen scenes—jungle, desert, forest, ocean. Through it all, a rhythmic thump thudded against Vasyl’s bones.

  “The hut is dancing again,” Baba Yaga said at his elbow, and Vasyl jumped. “Over here, boy.”

  “What are you building?” Vasyl asked as they threaded their way through the workshop.

  “Negative entropy.” She stepped on a wall and walked up it, still upright, as if that were the most normal thing in the world. Vasyl came with her, and the room lurched. The floor he had just left became the wall behind him, and the wall ahead of him became the floor. His stomach oozed with nausea.

  “Don’t barf,” Baba Yaga warned, and led him to a particular table. It sported a garishly complicated set of machinery. Coils of copper leaped over bent pipes and exposed wire in impossible patterns. Switches and dials festooned a large control panel at the head of the table and thrummed with enticing rhythm. Tiny tongues of lighting flicked across the entire array. Vasyl stared, fascinated.

  “I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “Where’s the mechanical?”

  Baba Yaga glanced about. “Where’s your broom?”

  “You’re going to make Broom think for himself?”

  “He’s halfway there already, boy. It’s faster than starting from scratch.”
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  Vasyl blinked several times. This unsettling possibility hadn’t occurred to him. Broom was the only remnant of his mother he had left. Letting Baba Yaga fiddle with him felt like a violation.

  “What if I said Broom doesn’t want to think for himself?” Vasyl hedged.

  Baba Yaga showed her iron teeth. “Then I would say my little machine here is unnecessary. Look, boy, we made a deal. Either you get your mechanical in here so I can finish my job, or I’ll just have to feed you.”

  “Feed me?”

  Vasyl realized the witch was holding a butcher knife. The same butcher knife Broom had used on the beef. A spot of blood on the blade made a splotch of red chaos near the handle. “Feed you,” she said, “to myself.”

  “Broom!” Vasyl shouted. “Come!”

  Broom bustled into the workshop, barely pausing at the intersection of floor and wall. He halted at Vasyl’s side and saluted. A puff of steam escaped from one of his seams with a small squeak.

  “Drat.” Baba Yaga set the knife down. “I could have done with a nice head cheese.”

  “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” Vasyl asked anxiously.

  “Not at all. I just need a little help to complete the process.” Baba Yaga pressed a button, and another table rose from the floor. Chained to it by his wrists, neck, and ankles was Petro. He was also gagged. The table tilted, and Petro’s terrified dark eyes met Vasyl’s blue ones. Vasyl cried out and ran toward him, but Baba Yaga shoved him backward and he landed flat with the wind knocked out of him. Broom quivered but didn’t move. A spider crawled to the edge of the table and peered quizzically down at them.

  “Don’t act so surprised, boy,” Baba Yaga said. “I told you the Tatar was mine if I wanted him.”

  Vasyl hauled himself gasping to his feet. “You said you were just playing.”

  “Yes.” Baba Yaga dropped the spider on Petro’s shoulder, where it set the tips of two of its sharp, pointed legs against Petro’s skull. His eyes widened, and he tried to lean away from it, but the fetter at his neck didn’t afford him enough movement. Muffled noises emerged from the gag.

  “Don’t you touch him!” Vasyl yelled.

  “I don’t have a choice,” Baba Yaga replied calmly. “We have a deal. In order for me to make a mechanical that can think for itself, I need living nervous tissue. The procedure won’t kill him. Quite.”

  “Broom! Attack!”

  Broom charged. The iron point of his staff speared toward Baba Yaga’s heart.

  Baba Yaga was caught off guard. She screeched and jumped back. Vasyl didn’t watch what happened next. Instead he snatched up a hammer from another worktable and struck at one of the locks on Petro’s fetters. The lock at his right wrist cracked. Then a hard hand yanked him away from Petro’s table and flung him down to the floor (wall?) several paces away. Baba Yaga’s ugly face pushed into his.

  “You think making a deal with me is a joke, boy?” she hissed. Behind her, Broom lay motionless on his side. The tip of his staff was bent. “There are rules even I cannot break. You will complete the housework and leave this cottage with a mechanical that can think for itself, or I will boil you screaming in my cauldron so I can peel meat from your long bones.”

  “I won’t let you hurt Petya for me,” Vasyl snarled from the floor at her feet.

  “Why not?” Baba Yaga barked.

  The lump came back to Vasyl’s throat. The spider on the side of Petya’s head pressed its sharpness through his dark hair, and a trickle of blood ran down his neck. Vasyl felt the pain as his own.

  “You know why,” he whispered.

  Her smoky breath burned his lungs and droplets of warm spittle spattered his cheek. “Say it, my little automaton.”

  Vasyl shook. His teeth chattered and he clutched his hands to his sides. But he couldn’t disobey. He said, “Because I’m in love with him.”

  The entire workshop fell silent except for the rhythmic thud and thump of the dancing feet outdoors. Vasyl’s face burned with shame. How would Petro, his lifelong friend, the one man who knew his heart better than anyone else, react to this? He didn’t want to meet Petya’s eyes, but he couldn’t help it. Slowly, he looked at Petya’s face.

  Petya’s gaze was stone. He looked away and closed his eyes. Vasyl’s heart turned to lead and dropped into his feet.

  “Hm.” Baba Yaga ran a claw across her lower lip. Broom remained motionless on the floor. “Such irony. To win a bride you don’t desire, you blindly obey orders to seek a mechanical that can think for itself. And to get these two things you don’t want, you’ll have to give up the one person you do desire.”

  “You’re a bitch,” Vasyl whispered. “A granite bitch.”

  “You came to me, and you agreed to the offer, so you’ve no one to blame but yourself, boy. And speaking of the offer, I still need part of your Tatar’s brain to—”

  The rhythmic thud outside stopped. Silence followed. Baba Yaga twisted around and swore.

  “Panel!” she ordered, and a trio of spiders brought over a portable control panel with a glass front, though two of the spiders twitched and quivered, nearly dropping the thing. The third spider limped. Baba Yaga twisted dials and punched buttons in an arcane pattern until an image wavered and cleared in the glass. It showed the nasty alley with the fence of bones, which still gaped open. Standing just past them was a little girl clutching a doll. Olena. Vasyl bit back a cry. Petya’s eyes went wide and frantic.

  “I hate it when people do that,” Baba Yaga muttered. “Now I have to recalibrate everything. One of these days I’ll have to change that password into something people can’t hack.”

  “I don’t want the mechanical anymore,” Vasyl said. “Just let Petya go. And leave that girl alone. She has nothing to do with any of this. You and I can make a new deal. It must be hard to live here all by yourself with—”

  “Sorry,” Baba Yaga interrupted absently. “I have to complete the mechanical. I’ve lived what you call the future, and I know it will be done.”

  Vasyl went cold. He staggered backward and leaned against the mechanical’s table. “No. We have free choices. The future isn’t set except by—”

  “Him? Hm. In the same vein, perhaps Broom thinks you set the future.” Baba Yaga gave a dreadful chuckle. On the screen, the image of Olena wavered uncertainly in the gap Vasyl had made in the fence.

  “Look, can’t we—”

  “In any case”—the witch waved her butcher knife at the screen—“that tender girl out there upset the calibrations of my entire workroom. I’ll be up all night resetting the machinery so I can finish your mechanical on time. The little wench earned you a reprieve, boy.”

  She slapped another button, and all of Petro’s fetters, including the spider, released themselves. He slid from the table to land in a heap on the floor while Vasyl hovered uncertainly above him. He wanted to grab Petro and run, but Baba Yaga was between him and the door, and in any case he wouldn’t get very far.

  “Why are you letting him go?” Vasyl asked.

  “I’m not. No one gets out the front door unless I unlock it, so it doesn’t really matter if your Tatar sleeps in my kitchen or weeps in my workroom until I need him.” Baba Yaga dropped the butcher knife on the table again with a clatter. “Nothing in our deal says I can’t give you one last night together, though whether that’s mercy or malice, I’ll let you decide. If you get bored, you can get a head start on tomorrow’s weaving.”

  Vasyl started to help Petya up, but he hissed, “Don’t touch me,” and struggled to his feet on his own. Vasyl felt sick inside. Baba Yaga was cruel, indeed.

  “We need to help Olena,” Petya whispered. “Get the hell out of here.”

  Vasyl righted Broom, his eyes down. It looked as though Baba Yaga had merely knocked the mechanical’s memory wheels askew, and it would take no time at all to reset them. The bend at the top of his staff hadn’t seriously hurt him, either. Vasyl wheeled Broom like a little pushcart ahead of him and followed Petro, who limped t
oward the wall and barely paused at the corner to turn the angle and right himself. Behind and above them, Baba Yaga stormed over to her floating forge, muttering and cursing all the while. The workroom door refused to shut for them, so they were forced to leave it open when they went back into the kitchen.

  “I said you were screwed,” Maroushka said from the table.

  Petro stared, and Vasyl made a fast introduction. “We should figure out what to do about Olena.”

  “The little girl outside? She’s fine for now. Out there it’s still the same night you boys came in. It took Olena nearly four hours of our time to say the entire password. Tesseract, yeah?”

  Petro collapsed onto a bench. His muscles sagged and his head bowed. “Then we have time. A little.”

  “Petya.” Vasyl parked Broom and gingerly sat next to the other man. “Petya, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Petro said to his clenched fists. “Sorry?”

  “For bringing you and Olena into all this.” Vasyl had to force himself to keep talking. “For not listening to you. And for…the other thing.”

  “Well, I’m intrigued,” Maroushka said.

  “You bastard,” Petro whispered in a tone that crushed Vasyl like paper. “How can I believe you did this to me?”

  “I’m s—”

  In a lightning move, Petro grabbed the front of Vasyl’s shirt and hauled him face-to-face. “If you say you’re sorry again, I will ram your balls up through the roof of your mouth.”

  And then he was kissing Vasyl. Vasyl stiffened. Petya was kissing him. It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t happen. It was wrong and evil and it was the very thing he had been wanting ever since he had first met Petro all those years ago, the exact thing he had never been able to admit to anyone or to himself, but this terrifying and impossible place allowed the terrifying and impossible to happen. Petya’s mouth was warm on his, and his unshaven cheek rasped against Vasyl’s, and his arms were strong around Vasyl’s neck and back. Vasyl whimpered softly as something broke free inside him and he pressed himself against Petya, held his warm, hard body against his own. His soul rose and twisted beyond metal walls, and Petya’s rose and twisted with him, trailing like a pair of comets in the sky.