A Soul's Worth

by T. S. Barnett

  Ben grinned at him when Warren had to stop his attentions in favor of leaning his head on his shoulder and panting lightly against his neck, his back arching against the familiar touch. He remembered himself quickly and put a warning hand on Ben’s firm chest as he sat back out of reach of his wandering hands. The older man’s protest quickly dissolved into a low moan as Warren’s grip found him again, pulling and squeezing him at an exhaustingly slow pace. He got his fingers around both of them at once, just barely, using his hips to add pressure and friction between them.

  He teased for as long as he could, until Ben begged under his breath for release. This was how Warren liked him. Eyes shut, knuckles white around the rim of the tub, whimpering and twitching his hips at every slight movement. At least he had enough presence of mind not to crush the porcelain with his brass hand. As he finally sped up, Ben reached up with one hand to pull him down by the back of his head and hold him in a crushing kiss, both of them short of breath and trembling until finally Ben groaned out his climax. Warren followed soon after, and he collapsed on top of the other man, sending a bit of water sloshing over the side. He chuckled as he felt Ben’s chest rise and fall beneath his cheek in a great sigh and his warm hand patting him affectionately on the head.

  They lay like that for a while, quietly entwined, until the water grew too cool to be called a bath any longer. Warren finally lifted his head, placed a soft kiss on the other man’s lips, and murmured, “Now let’s get you that scrub, and then I’ll let you see how comfortable the guest room is.”

  Chapter Three

  The loud bell woke Warren with a start, and for a moment he brushed it off as imagination and hid his face back in Ben’s bare shoulder. When it rang again, he lifted himself up in a daze until he realized that the unwelcome sound meant someone was at the door.

  He flew out of the bed so quickly that he almost fell over, and he dashed across the hall to his quarters and pulled on some clean clothes. He attempted to make himself presentable on the way to the door, where he had to hiss and shoo Cam away from the front window.

  “There is a man outside,” it said helpfully. “Shall I open the door?”

  “No!” Warren snapped in a panic. “No. Please go upstairs for now. You’re—you’re something of a secret, do you understand?”

  “A secret is something that is meant to be kept unknown,” Cam explained with a bright shutter of its eyes and a tilt of its head.

  “Yes. Precisely. You must stay a secret. Upstairs, please, quickly.”

  The golem complied, its metal footsteps clanking on the steps before it disappeared into the workshop.

  With a quick, steeling breath, Warren opened the front door and put on his best servile smile. The young man standing on the front step was dressed in expensive finery from head to toe—his top hat was almost comically tall, and his dark coat hugged his waist fashionably before splitting into tails that nearly brushed his ankles. He wore a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez and held a long, gold-tipped walking stick at a jaunty angle in front of him. He smiled brightly at Warren as the door opened.

  “Ah. Hello there. Almost thought I’d come to the wrong house. Is Sir Edmund Bennett at home?”

  Warren felt the blood drain from his face. Sir Bennett could go months without a visitor, and now someone came asking for him the day after he’d been given over to bloody cannibals?

  “Ah, Sir Bennett is...indisposed?”

  “Oh, I hardly think so. We have an appointment. My name is Charles Wakefield. Sir Bennett was quite insistent that I arrive on this day at precisely ten o’clock. He called ages ago to invite me. I’m to see an invention of his, and perhaps to purchase it from him, if I’m suitably impressed. None of this sounds familiar to you?”

  “Sir Bennett sometimes forgets to inform me of his appointments,” Warren answered uncertainly.

  “Well I won’t stand about on a stoop either way, lad. May I come in?” Warren wondered about being called “lad” by a man who didn’t seem very deep into his thirties, but it definitely wasn’t his place to question it.

  “Oh. Y-Yes. Of course. Apologies, sir.” Warren stood back from the door to allow Mr. Wakefield entrance, his heart pounding. He thought he felt a light sweat beginning on his brow. He cringed when the gentleman called out rather loudly for Sir Bennett and received only silence in response.

  “If you had an idea of what Sir Bennett meant to show you, sir, I could find it for you in his absence. I would hate to think you had wasted your time.”

  Mr. Wakefield turned back to him with a conspiratorial smile. “It’s supposed to be a revelation,” he said. “An automaton. Absolutely stunningly lifelike, he promised. Suitable for any kind of work around the home, or even as a valet.”

  “An...an automaton,” Warren repeated blankly. Sir Bennett’s intention had been to market golems as mere robots? Unfortunate for him that the cost was more than he realized, and doubtless more than Mr. Wakefield would be willing to pay. A hundred thoughts ran through Warren’s head. Should he say Sir Bennett was on sabbatical? Ill? How to dissuade Mr. Wakefield from getting a look at Cam? Did he even want that? He said he was there to purchase, if the product was right.

  “Please wait here,” he found himself saying, and he climbed the steps to the workshop and opened the door. Cam was waiting patiently just inside. Warren urged iy out, and he heard Mr. Wakefield’s boisterous laugh as the golem stepped easily down behind him. “This is the...the automaton,” he said, watching Cam for any intention to correct him.

  “I am Cam,” it said.

  “By Jove,” Mr. Wakefield laughed, walking in circles around Cam and carefully inspecting it. “It has a name, does it?”

  “I am Cam,” it repeated. “Who are you?”

  Mr. Wakefield looked at Warren curiously.

  “Just talk to it,” he explained. “It will understand you.”

  “My name is Charles,” Mr. Wakefield said rather slowly, directly into Cam’s face.

  “Hello, Charles. Do you like to read histories?”

  “I say.” Mr. Wakefield grinned over Cam’s shoulder at Warren. “This isn’t a script?”

  Warren shook his head. “Not at all. It’s completely independent and free-thinking. It answers any question to the best of its knowledge, and will ask its own, as you see. It has only been active for a day, so its responses are somewhat limited, but it has the capacity to learn.”

  “Positively miraculous,” Mr. Wakefield said, and he looked back at Cam. “I do enjoy a history on occasion. Done a bit of reading, have you?”

  “Yes,” it answered immediately. “I have read many books while Warren Hayward was away and sleeping.”

  “That’s you, is it?” Mr. Wakefield asked as he glanced back at Warren.

  “Yes, sir. It has no need to sleep, you see, so it’s been active all night. I haven’t structured it, so it’s been reading whatever draws its attention. It seems to enjoy history.”

  “Enjoys, eh? Incredible.” He tilted his head to inspect the joints of cam’s head and neck, adjusting his pince-nez. “What powers it?”

  Warren hesitated for just a moment, but then he said, “A small reactor. It will never need to be recharged, and will last into the foreseeable future. The body itself will likely break down before the reactor. I would show you, but it’s been built to avoid having the chest cavity opened—trade secrets,” he lied with an easy smile, surprising himself.

  “Ha! Quite so. Well, it’s a shame Sir Bennett isn’t here; I’d love to take this machine off your hands for the sum we agreed upon. It would be an absolute smash at parties.”

  Warren spotted Ben poking his head out of the room behind Mr. Wakefield, but he cleared his throat and kept his attention on the gentleman. “Truth be told, Mr. Wakefield,” he began hesitantly, not positive in the slightest that the words pouring out of his mouth were a good idea, “Sir Bennett hasn’t been home for some time. He told me he was traveling to India for study, and I haven’t heard from him since.” He
glanced down at the floor with a humble expression. “I...took it upon myself to continue his work, since I had nothing to do with him gone but keep up the house.”

  Mr. Wakefield turned to face Warren then with a curious lift of his eyebrow. “You mean to tell me that you, and not Sir Bennett, built this machine?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What exactly is your purpose here, boy?”

  “I am an apprentice, sir. Sir Bennett was to teach me about...about mechanics. I assisted him in his workshop.” Only half a lie.

  The gentleman laughed and clapped Warren so hard on the shoulder that he almost stumbled. “Brilliant, lad! What did this thing say your name was—Warren what?”

  “Hayward, sir.” He could see Ben staring at him from the hallway door, but he steadfastly ignored his incredulous look.

  “Well, if Sir Bennett isn’t here to make good on his promises, Mr. Hayward, then that’s no reason your hard work should go unrewarded, I say.” He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a billfold, which made Warren hesitate. He hadn’t thought this through. If this gentleman took Cam with him, the golem would surely not be able to keep the truth from him, and it would become clear upon even the briefest inspection that it was only a hollow husk, not a machine. “Eleven hundred pounds was the agreed upon number, I believe.”

  “Eleven—” Warren choked on the words, and he could see Ben’s bulging eyes down the hall. “Sir, I—I must be frank with you.”

  “Yes? What?” Mr. Wakefield looked up from his checkbook, where he had already touched pen to paper.

  “This automaton, it is—it is a prototype. See, here, its jaw is misaligned, and it hasn’t been properly buffed. I can build you another,” he promised, immediately panicking. He purposely avoided looking across at Ben.

  “Ah. I see. How long will that take? I have a banquet coming up in two weeks’ time, and this would be an absolute hit.”

  “Two weeks? Two weeks...should be plenty of time.”

  “Ha! Excellent. Take this as an incentive, then. I expect a timely and impressive product, Mr. Hayward!” The gentleman scribbled into his book, and with a quick tear of paper, handed Warren a bank slip clearly marked with a signature and a promise of £100. He was almost too busy gawking at it to notice Mr. Wakefield’s offered hand, but he quickly recovered and shook it fervently.

  “Yes, sir. Timely and impressive.”

  The gentleman took one more appreciative look at Cam before he moved to the door, and Warren opened it for him and closed it when he’d gone. He turned slowly back toward the room, feeling lightheaded.

  “What did y’go and do that for?” Ben asked in an unbelieving whisper as he moved out into the corridor. “You’ve promised him a golem, Warren!”

  “Eleven hundred pounds, Ben. That kind of money will change our lives. That could support us for years!”

  “But you don’t know how to make a golem! Except for the tiny detail of it costing a human life!” He leaned in to hiss the last few words, gesturing over to Cam to illustrate his point. “What do you intend to do about that?”

  “Well, I’ll—I don’t know. Sir Bennett must have notes. I drew the circle myself; I could do it again.”

  “And the whole giving-your-life-in-exchange aspect?”

  Warren frowned down at the check in his hand, feeling his stomach twisting into knots. Even just this hundred pounds would be enough to live on for well over a year, but the money would be no good to him dead, and he wasn’t quite so altruistic as to sacrifice himself for Ben’s financial security.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally, but he could feel a dark tingling in the back of his mind. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “Figure something out? Are you insane?”

  “Just—I need some time,” he said, pressing his palms to his temples. “I need some time.” He dropped the check on a table as he moved by Cam and Ben, and he hurried up the stairs to the workshop, ignoring the golem’s protests that that was “Cam’s room” as he shut and bolted the door behind him.

  He leaned on the door a moment, raking his fingers through his hair as he scanned the room for something that might help him. He moved over to the bookshelf and began spilling books onto the floor, discarding histories and philosophical treatises and setting aside anything that looked like it had any magic in it at all. There had to be a way to do it without blood magic.

  Chapter Four

  Over the next few days, Ben came to the manor at every opportunity, but he always found the same thing—the workshop door closed and locked and Cam in the study, sitting quietly by itself and reading. When Warren did appear, he looked pale and tired. Ben tried to convince him to tell Mr. Wakefield that he couldn’t deliver or at least that he needed more time, but Warren always waved him away.

  “It’s finished now,” he finally said after a week had gone by, on one of the rare occasions that Ben had been by around suppertime and had been able to convince the other man to eat. Cam had apparently made strange friends with the built-in automaton in the kitchen, but it admitted to Ben that Warren hadn’t been eating the meals they had prepared together.

  “What’s finished? You figured it out?” Ben asked, leaning his elbows on the table to look into Warren’s face.

  “I finished the body,” he sighed in return. “I couldn’t give him an empty husk. It had to look like a machine. It probably wouldn’t work, even if it had a real power source. What do I know about building robots?” he lamented, dropping his spoon and letting his forehead thump onto the table beside his bowl. “I just filled it with gears and pistons. I’ll have to seal it up properly, like Cam, so they can’t look inside.”

  Ben paused, hesitating to ask his next question. “So…you don’t ‘ave any idea what to do about the actual golem bit?”

  “I’ve been reading,” Warren answered without lifting his head, his voice muffled by the table and his curtain of red hair. “I tried last night. I did everything they said in the books. I put the letters on the inside of the forehead, I burned the incense, I said the words. I drew the circle,” he continued with a long sigh, and he turned his head so that he could stare up at Ben, his cheek resting on the wooden table while his arms dangled at his sides. “Nothing. Not even a glimmer or a tremble. There must be blood.”

  “I don’t ‘ave to tell you I don’t like all this blood magic, love, not one bit. Not good for your soul, it’s not. It’s exactly the sort of thing I’m trying to prevent on the Heolstran road, you know that.”

  “Oh, it’s like any other kind of magic,” Warren scoffed, lifting his head and staring into his soup. “I control it, not it me.”

  “Just be careful with it, eh? I won’t ‘ave you putting your own self in that circle an’ending up like Sir Ed.”

  “I’m not about to sacrifice myself, Ben,” he assured him. “I thought…” He hesitated, glancing to the other man out of the corner of his eye. Ben was a big lad, but he was actually something of a soft touch when it came to matters like this. “I thought perhaps…if I used an animal—”

  “What, you’re going to bring something in ‘ere and take it upstairs and kill it? Just like that?”

  “Well what choice do I have?” Warren snapped back defensively. “The ritual requires blood, and I’m rather attached to mine.”

  “You could tell your gentleman that Cam isn’t for sale and you’re out of business,” Ben pressed. “We don’t need the money, Warren. You said yourself we could live on Sir Ed’s investments for a time.”

  “For a time,” he admitted. “But what then?”

  “Then you get kicked out of the manor and you come and stay with me,” Ben said with a grin. He reached over to put a reassuring hand on the back of Warren’s neck, his fingertips brushing lightly over the tender skin and sending a small shiver up the other man’s spine.

  “With you? They’d find us out, Ben,” Warren sighed, his eyes closing involuntarily. “And you only just support yourself as it is. What would I do, if I’m no
t an apprentice? There isn’t much call for magic at the docks.”

  “You could wash my dishes,” he offered helpfully. “I ‘ear you’re good at that.”

  “Sod off, will you?” Warren frowned. He opened his eyes and looked over at his lover with a furrowed brow. “You know we couldn’t. We’d be discovered.”

  “Who would say anything? People mind their own business down there.”

  “Anyone could say anything. It only takes one report. Someone would say something, and the constabulary would be at our door.” He leaned over to put a hand on Ben’s knee, his other reaching up to clutch the hand on his neck. “Wealth is the only shield we have. With money, you can get away with anything. It’s the only way we can protect ourselves. Otherwise they’ll put us in prison, Ben.”

  Ben sighed at the plaintive look on the other man’s face, and he gently tugged Warren closer to him by his neck and pressed a warm kiss to his lips. “If you promise me you’ll be careful,” he said softly, “I’ll ‘elp you how I can. Tell me what you need.”

  “I think…I think as long as it’s something alive, it might be enough. Maybe a rabbit?”

  “A rabbit?” Ben pulled away from him and pointed at the cooling soup on the table, which Warren dutifully continued to eat. “Why a rabbit?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s…small? I don’t know what the requirements are.”

  “What if it works, but you just end up with a golem with the brain of a rabbit?”

  Warren paused with the spoon halfway to his lips. “I…I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Maybe you could build little brass rabbits instead of people. Wealthy ladies could put them in the garden and chat while they ‘opped about.”

  “Be serious,” he scolded, but he was smiling. “I have to try. If I end up with a human-sized metal rabbit, then I guess I’ll have my answer.” He glanced back up at Ben. “Where would I even get a rabbit?”