Clockwork Boys: Book One of the Clocktaur War

by T. Kingfisher

  She read some of the papers upside down on the Captain’s desk while she waited. Most of them had to do with duty rosters. There was an interesting one about a sweep of the gutterside slums. Apparently unlicensed prostitution was up. She hadn’t known that.

  “My god, Caliban, you look like hell.”

  Slate glanced up, and saw the Captain staring at the former knight with an expression less of horror than chagrin.

  Hmm, they really do know each other. I suppose there’s no reason a Captain of the Guard wouldn’t know a famous temple knight. Maybe they worked together doing…knight…stuff…

  “I’ve been possessed, arrested, exorcised, and locked in a cell for four months. There’s a dead demon rotting somewhere in the back of my soul. What do you expect?”

  That does sound unpleasant. Hmm, I wonder what a rotting demon’s like? Maybe he smells it the way I smell rosemary.

  God, that’d be awful. Poor bastard.

  Slate went back to reading. It looked like the Stone Bitches were about to get arrested. That was a shame, really: they’d hired her a time or two to produce false bills of sale. Decent people. Understood craftsmanship.

  “Ah. Yes.” The Captain actually seemed to be at a bit of a loss. He glanced over at Slate, cleared his throat, and gathered up his papers. “I didn’t expect—are you sure you want—?”

  “Yes,” said Slate.

  “Yes,” said Caliban.

  There was an awkward silence. Slate wondered which one of them he’d actually been talking to.

  Deprived of other people’s mail to read, she studied her feet again.

  “Well.” The Captain dropped his papers and ran a hand through his hair. “You realize, Lord—Sir Caliban, you would be answering to Mistress Slate here. She is nominally in charge of your mission, by the Dowager’s order. You’d—ah—support and render aid. And so forth.”

  Caliban made a small, ironic bow in her direction. “Madam.”

  Slate glanced at the Captain, wondering if he’d hoped that would be a deal breaker. Apparently it wasn’t. The Captain sighed.

  “Sit down. I’ll call for the…ah…hell.”

  With this fragmentary statement, the Captain swept out of the room. Caliban looked after him. Slate wondered if he’d noticed himself flinching back from the man’s movement.

  “Hmm,” the paladin said.

  “If you make a run for it, you could probably get out of the palace,” she said by way of conversation. “I don’t know if you can kill the front guards barehanded, but it’s probably worth a shot. I’d leave the city right away, mind you.”

  He looked at her, his eyes widening.

  “Just a thought.” She sat down on the edge of the desk and began reading the warrants for the Stone Bitches again.

  “You’re a very odd woman,” he said.

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  The door opened again. The Captain ushered a heavyset man inside. He was bald, with the variegated pattern of shine indicating that he was probably shaving his head to avoid showing how badly his hair was thinning. His thick fingers were wrapped around the handle of a large leather case.

  “Sit,” the Captain ordered Caliban. And: “Stop reading my mail.”

  Caliban quirked an eyebrow and sat. The bald man knelt next to the chair and rolled up the sleeve of the knight’s tunic. Slate stopped reading the Captain’s mail, put one heel up on the desk and hugged her knee to her chest.

  The bald man opened his case, and took out a set of needles and a jar of black ink. A wave of rosemary welled up and smacked Slate across the nose.

  Gods, I go months without this happening, and now this. Dammit, Grandma, if they hadn’t burned you at the stake, I’d light you myself.

  “I’m getting a tattoo,” said Caliban evenly. “Why?”

  The Captain pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Let me start at the beginning. You know that we’re losing the war with Anuket City, I assume?”

  Caliban smiled sourly. “They weren’t admitting that when I got locked up, but most of us suspected.”

  “We’re still not admitting it, but yes, we are. The problem is the Anuket troops—the Clockwork Boys, as they call ’em. As fast as the army cuts them down—which frankly isn’t very fast—more show up. They’re not human. We don’t know how to stop them except sheer brute dismemberment.”

  Slate could feel her eyes watering. She snuffled.

  “Here.” The Captain dug through papers and came up with a hunk of debris. It looked like a cross between the inside of a clock and a piece of driftwood. Tiny gears and cogwheels encrusted the sides like barnacles.

  The knight took the object and turned it over in his fingers. “What is this?”

  “Part of a Clockwork Boy. It used to move, but we boiled it for a few hours and it finally stopped.”

  “Are these made of bone?”

  “We don’t know. The alchemists are still fighting over it. Half of them think it’s organic, and the other half think someone carved each little piece. They use a lot of words that I don’t think even they understand.”

  “Hmm.” Caliban handed the piece back to the Captain, and wiped his hand on his pant leg.

  “Anyway.” The Captain set it down on his desk. “They’ve got to be making them somewhere—or building them, or breeding them, or summoning them, or the Dreaming God knows what.”

  Caliban might have said something, but the tattoo artist sank a needle into his bicep, and he winced.

  “Anyway. Your—ah—group will be traveling to Anuket City to attempt to infiltrate and learn how this is happening. And if possible, to stop it.”

  “Snrrrgghghk…” Slate pinched the bridge of her nose and tilted her head back miserably.

  “You don’t have spies there already?” asked Caliban.

  The Captain shook his head. “Not any more. All the ones we did have wound up going missing.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, which he dropped in Slate’s lap without comment. “Our spies in Anuket had been largely diplomatic corps, frankly—they’re supposed to watch the politics, not break in and steal state secrets. And now they’re presumed dead anyway. So we’re trying a more brute force solution.”

  The bald man’s fingers moved with surprising deftness over the pale skin of Caliban’s upper arm, leaving dark lines behind. Slate retired to a corner and blew her nose.

  “And we’re the best you could come up with?” said Caliban.

  “No,” said the Captain. “You’re not the Dowager’s first choice, or even the second, I’m afraid. But those people are also presumed dead now, so here we are.”

  “And that’s all you know?”

  “That’s all we know. A scholar will be accompanying you. He’s made something of a study of arcane machinery—it’s possible that his expertise may help. In theory he has a counterpart in Anuket City that should know more, but that other scholar has vanished.”

  “Lucky him,” muttered Slate.

  “You can’t expect this to work,” said Caliban, shifting in his seat. The bald man made a wordless, irritable noise, like a man with a restless horse. Caliban settled. “Even getting to Anuket City at this point is madness…unless things have changed since I went in the cell, there’s a no man’s land between us and them.”

  “Things have changed, all right,” said the Captain. “The no man’s land is about twice as big, for one thing.”

  Caliban shook his head in disbelief.

  “You note we’re using prisoners, not soldiers, and not just for deniability. The Dowager's grasping at straws, if you ask me. But if you live through it, there’s a full pardon.” The Captain sounded unconvinced.

  “What’s to keep me from leaving with the lady here and simply riding off?”

  “Aww,” said Slate.

  “Well, your word would be nice,” said the Captain. (Slate snorted.) “But failing that, the thing on your arm should do it.”

  “What?” Caliban looked d
own at his arm.

  Crudely rendered in black ink, a small toothy creature was portrayed with its teeth sunk into the flesh of Caliban’s arm. As art went, it was barely above a child’s drawing, but it had a primitive, scowling menace.

  “What’s that supposed to be?”

  “I haven’t any idea.” The Captain sighed. “But if you betray us, the tattoo will eat you.”

  Caliban stared at him, then laughed. “You’re kidding. You can’t possibly be serious.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And they called me mad?”

  He stood up.

  “I wouldn’t—” Slate began.

  Caliban yelped and slapped at his shoulder, like a man stung by a biting insect. His hand came away bloody, and not just from the freshly inked tattoo. Red beaded under the black ink teeth.

  “Gods—hells—it bit me!”

  “They do that,” said Slate tiredly. “I saw one eat a man once. He eventually cut his arm off, and it showed up on the stump a few days later. Don’t ask me to explain how it works.”

  Caliban opened his mouth and said something, in a guttural sing-song that sounded like, “Ngha! Ngha’ha, ha, halihalikaliha!”

  There was a brief, appalled silence.

  “Ooookaaay…” said Slate, and sneezed explosively.

  Shit. He is mad. Shit. The rosemary was trying to warn me off.

  Shit.

  Maybe Brenner can kill him and dump him in an alley.

  “Good god, you weren’t kidding, were you?” said the Captain.

  The bald man laughed, revealing a stump of a missing tongue. Slate looked away, grimacing.

  “That’s enough, Boran,” said the Captain. “Leave us.”

  The tattoo artist packed his case away, and waved his fingers at Caliban and Slate, eyes twinkling. Neither of them returned his wave. He left, humming to himself.

  Slate wondered vaguely where they’d found him. Minor wonderworkers were common enough, often possessing very specific talents. Still, what kind of turns did a life have to take before you discovered that your personal gift from the universe was making carnivorous tattoos?

  Caliban sat down again, clearing his throat and glaring daggers at the Captain. When he spoke, he seemed to test the words first to make sure they were coming out correctly. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me. Particularly after I saved your—”

  “Yes, well. Times change. People change.”

  “Apparently so.”

  Somebody’s pretty self-righteous for a nun-killer. This may be a long trip.

  “I’m sending you off to die, anyway,” said the Captain, not meeting his eyes. “Do the job as best you can. You’ll probably be dead long before the tattoo gets any ideas—and if you do live, we’ll take it off you.”

  Caliban turned his head away. Slate watched him fight himself visibly under control and decided to intervene.

  “Great pep talk, Captain,” she said. “I know I’m inspired. Are you quite done? Can I take him away now?”

  “You sure this is the only one you want?” the Captain asked her. “The Dowager said the prisons were opened, god help us all.”

  Slate shrugged. “If you thought numbers would help, you’d send the army. He’ll do. I hope.”

  “Sir Caliban?”

  The knight opened his eyes and looked at them levelly. “My word would have been enough,” he said.

  The Captain shrugged. “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.” And when Caliban simply gazed at him, he added, “Look, I don’t like this either. But the Clockwork Boys have to be stopped, and soon. We just don’t have the men to hold them off forever. If this works—well, the gods can call me to account for it on the other side.”

  Caliban transferred his gaze to Slate. “That’s why you told me to run for it,” he said.

  She nodded.

  The Captain’s eyes flicked from one to the other, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Slate pushed one of her sleeves up to the shoulder. Her own tattoo looked larger, perhaps because she was so much smaller. Jagged black teeth formed a semicircle halfway around the arm. The ink was not a great deal darker than her skin, but there was raw pink flesh under the creature’s teeth.

  “Ah.”

  When the tongueless wonderworker had given her the tattoo, the smell of rosemary had been so overpowering that the Captain and one of his men had to hold her steady while she sneezed and jerked. It had been humiliating. Her nose had bled by the end of it, and her head had felt as if it were packed to the seams with wool.

  The Captain had been apologetic. She’d ruined two of his handkerchiefs. Whatever he thought of himself, it did not involve holding down twitching women while tongueless wonderworkers etched curses into their flesh. Even if they were criminals.

  “When is the scholar due to arrive?” Slate asked.

  “He is supposed to arrive tomorrow or the next day. We expected you to leave in three to four days—are you sure you won’t stay at the palace?”

  “No need, is there?” Slate smiled, because otherwise she thought she might cry. She slid off the desk. “Three days, then. You know where to find us.”

  She led the way out the door, with the knight walking a single pace behind her.

  Chapter Three

  The road out of the keep led down a cobbled way, into a broad square full of merchant stalls and food carts and jostling people.

  They got about two blocks down, nearly to the edge of the market, and Caliban had to stop.

  It was too much. There were too many people, too many colors, moving too quickly. The sky was too large. He felt dizzy, as if he might fall upward into empty space.

  He tried to keep up with the woman—Slate—but his head spun and he staggered. She was moving too quickly, outpacing him as he shied like a nervous horse at the loud voices and flapping cloth.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice high and hoarse. “I—wait—please—”

  She turned, startled, and he put his hands over his face to block out the world.

  “Hey now—hey—” Her voice was sympathetic but wary, as if she wasn’t sure whether to console him or slap him. “Hey, now, you knew it was a suicide mission, don’t go to pieces on me, the tattoo won’t eat you as long as you’re trying—”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “It’s the sky. There’s too much of it.”

  Now that’s a sensible thing to say. Perhaps you really are mad.

  “Oh. Oh.”

  Her fingers touched his sleeve, then she curled her hand around his arm and tugged him forward. “It’s okay. Keep your eyes closed, here—come on—just through here—”

  He followed, keeping one hand over his eyes. The sounds of the city were still overwhelming, but they ran together into a muted roar, and he could ignore it.

  To think that a season ago, he’d walked or ridden through these streets without thinking them strange at all. He’d moved like a fish through a darting, multicolored sea.

  “Come on—step down—you’re doin’ good—”

  Such a great champion you are, now, being led blind by a woman half your size. Demons must tremble…

  His own particular demon muttered down in the dark, ragged ends of syllables with no earthly meaning. Death hadn’t silenced it completely. It was a more familiar sound than the city, now, but not a comfortable one.

  “Here. It’s an alley—this is the best I can do—”

  He cracked his fingers cautiously, and saw stone between them. It was indeed an alley, the corners thick with trash, the walls close and comforting. The sky was a narrow crack of blue overhead. A shudder of relief wracked him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t expect—this is foolish of me—”

  “It’s really not that uncommon,” she said. She was still holding his arm, and patted it absently, as if he were a skittish horse. “A lot of people get out and get a touch of agoraphobia at first. It’ll pass off in a day or two. I
shouldn’t have taken you straight into the marketplace, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You sound as if you’ve known a number of prisoners,” he said dryly.

  “Oh, yes.”

  She released his arm and retreated the few feet to the other side of the alley, leaning against the wall near the mouth. He tried to look out into the market again, found it a dizzying whirl, and looked away.

  He looked at Slate instead. She was a small-boned woman, her eyes grey and glittering, like flawed quartz. She had dark brown hair in a thick braid down her back, and a long, mobile face. Her skin was a few shades lighter than her hair and her clothes were loosely cut and nondescript. Mouse brown, sparrow brown—some creature that relied on being small and drab and getting out of the way of predators.

  She scowled out at the marketplace as if it had personally offended her.

  Caliban was vaguely aware that he would not have looked twice at her in the days when he was a god’s champion. Beautiful women had strewn themselves in his path like rose petals.

  And that morning, after you were done with the sword, they were strewn in your path again. Although not many roses are that exact shade of red, and they were not so beautiful any more.

  Shut up. You’re out of the cell. Quit wallowing. You’ve told hundreds of people they weren’t responsible for what the demon did with their body. Take your own damn medicine.

  It was embarrassing that he’d spoken with the demon voice in the Captain’s office. He hadn’t meant to. It must have been the tattoo, or the tattoo artist. Magic made the corpse stir, as if something were walking past it and kicking up the flies. It took them a while to buzz and settle down again.

  Such a lovely metaphor.

  The tattoo itched. He wanted to scratch it, but he was afraid it might scratch him back.

  My mind hasn’t been my own, and now my flesh isn’t either. At least they’re a matched set.

  Slate was peering out the mouth of the alley, chewing on her lower lip. Her eyebrows were pulled down. She was not a beautiful woman, he was forced to admit, but she had a mobile, expressive face. That was what had struck him, even in the cell, the way each thought passed visibly across her face, like the shadow of clouds moving over a hillside.