Clockwork Heart

by Dru Pagliassotti

  Taya stuck it out for another hour, exchanging polite inconsequentials with childhood acquaintances who came up to ask about the wireferry wreck and touch her wings for good luck. They were all famulates, and Taya felt the familiar discomfort of having left her birth-caste behind whenever the conversation faltered or turned to local affairs. A few children, clearly on the verge of their Great Examinations, asked her how to become an icarus, but she couldn’t give them much advice. She knew that being small and not being afraid of heights were important, but she couldn’t begin to guess what other variables the Great Engine calculated. Decatur Forlore would know, she thought, then smiled at herself and dismissed the thought.

  At last she kissed Katerin and Tomas good-bye and left the party with a distinct sense of relief.

  Tertius sprawled at the base of Ondinium Mountain, where it primarily housed members of the famulate caste — miners and metalworkers, engineers and smiths — and those foreigners who’d managed to purchase a labor or residency license, or who were visiting the city on business or out of curiosity. Even during the day, the streets of Tertius were shadowed by wireferry towers and girders and darkened by the ever-present blanket of smog from the factories, pollution that colored the sector’s sky a sickly yellow and covered everything in a thin layer of soot.

  Taya looked up but couldn’t make out the stars, only the lights from Secundus and Primus. Returning to Tertius always gave her a twinge of nostalgia for the sights and smells she’d left at age seven, but her father was right— she didn’t belong here anymore. Icarii moved between all the castes but fit in well with none of them, a social position that could be as awkward as it was liberating.

  She walked through dark, narrow stone streets toward the Great Market. When she’d been a child, she hadn’t noticed how dirty everything was on Tertius, or how shabby.

  The Great Engine ensured that nobody starved in Ondinium, but the difference between the heart of the capital’s industrial zone and the offices of Oporphyr Tower was inescapable to someone who moved freely between them every day.

  Lost in thought, Taya was about to pass beneath the broad stone arch of a footbridge she had played on as a child when she heard footsteps scrape on the cobblestones behind her.

  She turned.

  Two men stood under a gas lamp, five yards away. One was tall and fair-haired: a Demican, wearing his people’s rough native garments. The other was shorter and had the stocky build and bright vest of an Alzanan. Their faces were un-inked. Foreigners.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, trying to sound confident. Her gaze flickered to the sky. The way was clear, although she hadn’t had to take flight from a flat run for years. But flying meant locking her arms into her wings, and she didn’t want to make herself vulnerable unless it became necessary.

  “We am lost, Icarus,” the Alzanan said, struggling with Ondinan. “How we go Blue Tree Hotel?”

  The Blue Tree Hotel? That was a nice place… too nice for their attire. They might be meeting someone there, she told herself, trying to keep an open mind.

  Then the thought flickered past: Or this could be one of those secret diplomacy tests.

  “It’s on Jasper Street in Secundus,” she said, speaking Alzanan. “This bridge goes up to Secundus, and you can ask the guard at the sector gate how to get to the hotel. You’d better hurry, before the midnight lockdown.”

  “This bridge?” The Alzanan began walking forward, his neck craned. His tall companion followed, wearing the flat, stoic expression Demicans cultivated. “How do we get up to it?”

  “Go back a block and turn right on Damper, then right again on Alumina. There are access steps on Crate Street. Look for the signs directing you to Whitesmith Bridge.”

  “But we were on Crate Street, and we didn’t see any way up,” the Alzanan protested in his own language, still advancing. Taya touched the utility knife strapped to her chest harness. It was the only weapon icarii were allowed to carry in armature.

  “Please don’t come any closer, gentlemen,” she said, still speaking Alzanan.

  “You don’t need to be afraid of me.” The Alzanan looked hurt. “I’m only asking for directions.”

  “Go back a block. Make two rights.” Taya’s heart pounded. This could be a test, but it could also be the prelude to mugging. She was on Tertius, for the Lady’s sake— people were attacked down here all the time. “Please go.”

  “May I touch your wings for good luck?” The Alzanan took another step forward. Taya stepped backward, her hand tightening around the knife grip.

  “I’m sorry, but I—”

  Then she heard the scrape of metal against stone above her. Instinct took over and she threw herself forward. Heavy coils of rope hit her, jarring her wings and dragging at their metal feathers. Taya staggered, off-balance, and looked up. A second Alzanan leaned over the side of Whitesmith Bridge, leering down at her.

  A net. Taya swore, feeling it encumbering her wings. Its awkward weight threatened to pull her on her back.

  This isn’t a test!

  The first Alzanan and the Demican lunged forward. Taya yanked at her harness buckle with one hand and slashed her knife at the Alzanan when he drew near.

  “Help!” she shouted, feeling the buckle give way beneath her fingers. She began pulling at the next. The Demican drew a dagger from the back of his belt, his face hard.

  They were going to kill her.

  “Help! Guards!”

  The Alzanan darted in like a knife-fighter, a thin blade materializing between his fingers and snapping across her harness. Its razor-sharp edge cut the backs of her fingers. Taya stabbed at him. He danced backward. A small nick marked his bare forearm.

  The second buckle opened and her wings slid to one side across her shoulders. Taya tugged at the buckle around her waist, her fingers slippery with blood. If she could get out of the armature, she’d be able to fight. Right now her wings were nothing but deadweight.

  “Guards!” she shouted again, angry. “Dammit, somebody call a lictor!”

  The Demican shoved his partner aside, stalking forward with menacing intensity. Taya worked harder to pull the waist strap open. Demicans were hunters and warriors, and this one was about two feet taller and wider than she was.

  “What’s going on here?” a voice snapped with authority.

  The two men looked around, and Taya abandoned the buckle, taking the moment’s opening to even the odds. She lunged forward and thrust her utility knife through the Demican’s wool shirt and into his chest.

  He roared with anger, grabbing her wrist and yanking her aside. The net tangled her feet and she sprawled, losing her knife. She wrenched her waist buckle open, pulled apart her keel, and twisted aside as the warrior’s knife slashed down. The point of the blade caught her shoulder as she rolled away, leaving the net behind her.

  Scrambling on all fours, Taya snatched her utility knife off the cobblestones.

  Something gave a sharp, machinelike hiss. Behind her, the Demican grunted, sounding surprised.

  Taya spun, rising into a fighting crouch.

  The Demican was staring down at his chest. Two long metal needles stuck out from his shirt, blood spreading around them to match the growing stain where she’d stabbed him.

  “Forget her! We go!” the Alzanan shouted in Ondinan, and ran. The Demican staggered, looked at his fleeing companion, and then followed.

  Taya craned her neck, but there was no sign of the second Alzanan who’d been on top of the bridge.

  Her wings floated a foot off the ground, trapped by the heavy rope net. Taya hoped she could untangle the armature from the ropes without damaging it any further. She turned to ask her rescuer for assistance.

  The man was crouched over the drops of blood on the cobblestones, studying the ground. The hem of his greatcoat dragged on the street, and
he held a bulky iron air gun in one hand. Taya had seen the air rifles carried by Council guards, but she’d never seen a pistol-sized air gun before.

  Then he looked up, light flashing from the wire rims of his glasses. For a heartbeat he and Taya stared at each other with mutual recognition and dismay.

  “Exalted.” Taya ducked in a clumsy bow, remembering their disagreeable meeting in Decatur Forlore’s office. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

  Cristof stood and slipped the gun into his coat pocket, where it made an unsightly lump. Now Taya had to look up to meet his eyes— like most icarii, she was small and slight, whereas he had an exalted’s height. The cold night breeze ruffled the uneven ends of his dark hair.

  “Well, Icarus,” he said, frowning. “You’re either very careless or very unlucky.”

  His words irritated her. She turned back to her armature before he could see her expression.

  “Actually, I consider myself very lucky,” she said, working hard to keep her tone even. “I’m still alive.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the dark stain on her flight suit. The wound stung, but it was less inconvenient than the cut across her fingers.

  “It’s just a scratch.” She turned back and tried to find the bottom of the net.

  “Don’t. You’ll break it if you try to untangle it here. Take it back to my shop and do it in the light.”

  She hesitated. She didn’t like his manner, and if she weren’t so worried about her wings, she’d take great satisfaction in turning him down.

  But it wasn’t worth damaging her wings for the sake of pride.

  “Is your shop close?”

  “A few blocks away.” He stepped next to her and began gathering the net’s loose ends. She scooped the whole bundle off the ground. He turned his frown on her again. “I’ll get it.”

  “I can do it, Exalted. It’s not heavy, and they’re my wings.”

  He gave her a cool look, then handed her the rest of the net. As soon as she’d gotten all the ends wrapped up, he began walking, one hand jammed in his coat pocket.

  Taya followed, wondering if this might be a test, after all. Her classes in diplomatic protocol had never covered how to deal with an outcaste exalted.

  Cristof’s workshop was small, tucked into the basement of a larger building that was filled with small businesses. They descended three steps from the street to get to the door, which he unlocked with two keys.

  “Be careful,” he said, leading her in. Taya followed, tugging her floating bundle behind her.

  The first thing that struck her was the sound — a loud ticking, whirring, and clicking that came from every direction at once.

  Cristof struck a lucifer match and lit a wall gas lamp. Taya looked around with wonder as he turned up the flame to its highest level.

  Everywhere she looked she saw clocks and watches, pumps and wind-up toys; every kind of clockwork mechanism imaginable. Most were in motion, their hands turning, pendulums swinging, and gears rotating.

  “You have so many!” Taya breathed, her annoyance forgotten. She clutched her bundle and stared. Enamelwork and metal gleamed in the bright light like moving jewels. Cristof had a small fortune hanging on his walls and sitting on his shelves. “Did you make them all?”

  “No. Not all.” He hesitated, then walked to a desk. The light reflected off his tattooed cheekbones, making his face look even thinner. “Put the net on the table. Make sure the armature doesn’t float too high.”

  Reminded of her business, Taya tied two ends of the net to the table legs, letting the rest of the bundle float. Cristof returned with two knives and offered her one. His hands were dark with dirt or machine oil, another indication of his outcaste status. Exalteds were fastidious about their appearance.

  “It’ll be faster to cut the ropes,” he said. “That way we won’t bend any feathers.”

  “If those bastards broke my wings, I’ll kill them.” Taya grabbed the knife, sawing at the cords.

  “You may have, already. The man you stabbed was losing a lot of blood.”

  Taya cut through a rope and attacked the next. Then she set down the knife, looking at the blood welling from the cuts on her fingers.

  Had she really killed a man?

  If he got to a hospital, he’d be all right.

  Of course, he was a foreigner, and probably not even a licensed resident. Physicians weren’t obliged to treat anyone who didn’t pay Ondinium’s taxes, and any respectable doctor would ask questions about those wounds that the Demican wouldn’t want to answer.

  Why did she care what happened to him, anyway? He’d tried to kill her.

  “Scrap,” she muttered, angrily.

  Cristof paused, on the other side of the table.

  “What?”

  “What about you? You shot him, didn’t you? If he dies, he’ll probably die from that.”

  “Maybe.” The exalted studied her. “Although needlers seldom kill at range. They’re intended as deterrents.”

  “So if he dies, it’s my fault.” The thought depressed her. How would inflicting a fatal injury on a foreigner affect her chance at the diplomatic corps?

  “If he dies, it’s his fault for going icarus-hunting, not yours for defending yourself.” Cristof went back to work, his slender fingers tugging at the net strands. “And it’s his fault for working with Alzanans. A Demican should know better.”

  Not feeling very comforted, Taya picked up her knife again.

  “You don’t like Alzanans?”

  “Half the Alzanans in Ondinium are thieves and the rest are spies.” He sawed through another rope. “It doesn’t surprise me that they’d want an operational armature. They could demand an imperate’s ransom for these wings.”

  Taya began working on another rope, considering his words. She knew her wings were valuable, of course, but she’d never thought they’d attract thieves.

  “Do you think they were specifically looking for wings?” she asked.

  “They came with a net. That isn’t a standard mugger’s weapon. Did anyone know you’d be on Tertius tonight?”

  The rope unraveled beneath her blade, and she sighed.

  “Just about everybody in the neighborhood. I was at my sister’s wedding.”

  Cristof was silent. Taya kept working, ignoring the fresh trickles of blood that ran over her hands as she worked.

  She didn’t like the idea that those men had been hunting her. They must have heard she would be attending the wedding in armature and— what? Had they waited to see if she’d leave alone? Had they guessed that an icarus would find it easiest to launch from the Market Tower? Was she that predictable?

  She could have foiled their plans if she’d been more cautious, but why would she? Nobody harmed icarii. They were Ondinium’s couriers and rescuers, its alarm system and its luck.

  Of course, those three had been foreigners. They wouldn’t have an Ondinium citizen’s respect for an icarus.

  The armature jerked as the net slid apart. Taya grabbed the harness before it could hit the ceiling and hauled it back down. Without a word, Cristof tied one of the severed ropes to a harness strap and anchored it into place over the table.

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” Taya said, inspecting the wings. The net had yanked them out of their locked position, which meant they might have sustained damage to the joints, but she wouldn’t know until she tried them on again. She caressed the metal feathers closest to her, tugging them. They remained securely fastened to the wing struts.

  On the other side of the table, Cristof was doing the same thing, frowning as he concentrated. His dirt-stained fingers moved with confidence as he tested the feathers and their housing.

  Taya surreptitiously studied him. His coat was as plain and well-
worn as any other craftsman’s. He didn’t wear any rings or necklaces. He didn’t have any pins in his lapels or clasps and jewels in his short black hair. Even his spectacles were ordinary. There was nothing in his appearance to indicate he was anything other than a simple famulate mechanic, except the curling blue waves tattooed on his cheeks.

  Once you get past the discrepancy between his castemarks and the way he dresses, he’s not so bad looking, she thought. He still had an exalted’s features, after all. His copper skin was smooth and his raggedly cut hair was thick and glossy. His features were sharp, though, and there wasn’t much extra weight on his tall, thin frame. Grey eyes were unusual for an exalted. He had foreign blood in his ancestry; Demican, maybe. Those pale eyes were what made his face so cold, their light color emphasized by the silver rims of his spectacles.

  “This wing seems all right,” he said at last. She collected her thoughts.

  “Mine, too, unless some of the joint mechanisms have been damaged.”

  He glanced at her hands.

  “You’re getting blood all over everything. Sit down.”

  “They’re just scratches.” She looked down and grimaced. He was right. She’d smeared blood on her flight suit, and blood had dripped on the table beneath the armature. The cuts weren’t deep, but working with her hands had been keeping them open.

  Cristof pulled off his greatcoat, threw it over a chair, and vanished through a doorway. Relieved to be free of his critical gaze, Taya looked around with wonder.

  The clocks and timepieces all indicated the same time, but otherwise they varied widely, from the somber black long-case clock standing in one corner to the fanciful jeweled stag-shaped clock set on a high shelf to the open-geared clock under a glass case that took up two feet of the top of a tool cabinet. Three shelves next to a worktable were covered with wind-up toys, the kind Taya had played with as a little girl. Two caught her eye: small birds that floated over the top of the shelf, tethered with pieces of string. She stood and walked over to them, holding her bleeding hand close to her chest.

  The birds were cunningly crafted with tiny, bright enameled feathers and little beaks of gold. The miniature keys between each set of wings looked gold, too. The birds’ eyes sparkled, and Taya wondered if they were made of cut glass or gemstones. Gemstones, she guessed, if they were the expensive toys they seemed to be.