by Julia Knight
Before he could do anything, before he could even reach out an arm to stop her, she was gone in an echo of slammed door. He couldn’t seem to move, not to run after her, not to open the window and call out, not to do anything. He deserved this. All of it.
He was still standing there staring at the shut door when the room changed from being empty but for him to having someone else in it. A soft hissing sounded behind him, a rustled movement, a silky voice that echoed around his head and made the place on his back burn.
“Hello again, Vocho. I hope we haven’t come at an inopportune moment?”
He didn’t want to turn, he didn’t want to look at the face he knew was there, but he didn’t seem to have much choice. He turned, his eyes caught on the bloody patterns on the magician’s hands, the spot in his back burned like someone had struck him with a poker and everything went dark.
Interlude
Eleven years earlier
Vocho sparred against himself in the mirror, checking a thrust that left him overextended and made his new shirt stretch alarmingly. He didn’t want to ruin the effect or waste the money the silk had cost him. It looked good, and so did he. His little fluff of beard, all he could yet manage, was his pride and joy.
Kacha sat and watched him, her eyes dark and unreadable. She’d been off with him – with everyone – for days, weeks, longer. She was never about either; always off somewhere, and no matter how he tried he couldn’t winkle out of her what the problem was or where she was going. He’d given up trying to get a smile out of her or a rise to his insults. So instead he sparred and preened and looked forward to later. To the time when, almost certainly, he’d be called on to take his test to become a master. At fourteen too! There was no doubt in his mind either.
Eneko had called the meeting with the usual words, commanding all journeymen and lessers to present themselves at the courtyard under the clockwork duellist, all masters available to attend. A few of the smaller lessers had strung bunting around the courtyard, and the smell of roasting lamb wafted up from the kitchens. It had to be a master’s test – there was nothing else it could be. And how many journeymen were there? Five who could take the test at present. Himself, Kacha and three others. The rest were just there for the education and would leave before taking the final test, or weren’t yet up to scratch.
He couldn’t help but hum a cheery little tune of battles won and glories told. That he’d get there before Kacha – maybe that’s what she was sulking about. Oh, perhaps they’d give her the test too, but she wouldn’t get there before Vocho, and that’d rankle like buggery with his perfect sister. He hummed louder.
A sound echoed up from the courtyard and Vocho took a look – three lessers hitching the big mechanism at the centre of the courtyard to the links and gears that ran underneath and somehow connected up to the underwater wheels that ran the change o’ the clock.
They said the automaton of the duellist was as old as the guild – certainly as old as the grinding machinery that spun the city once every three nights. Vocho had watched the automaton’s face every night for years, wondering what it was she wanted from them. Outside, in the city, people had cast off the old gods with something approaching glee after the revolt and now prayed to the Clockwork God the prelate told everyone had made the world. Vocho prayed too, when he remembered, but it was the duellist which caught him, which inspired his most urgent prayers, which looked over the guild, watched them, guided them. It had dimmed a little, that fervent belief, as he’d grown, but now on the cusp of everything he wanted it came back in a rush. Since he’d left home he’d cared about only two things: keeping his promise to Da, maybe earning a bit of praise, showing the old bastard that he was good for something after all, and becoming a master. What they’d drilled for, taken bruises and whacks galore for, trained and studied and sparred for, learned all the stupid rules until he could recite them in his sleep. This was it.
The clock above the entrance to the arena began to chime, sounding tinny and harsh. One, two, three – not the call to arms, that was two bells. Four, five, six – not sparring, that was four. Seven, eight, nine – not a journeyman’s test, that was eight. Vocho shut his eyes as the last came. Ten.
The bells stopped, and Vocho let out a great breath. He grabbed Kacha, whirled her around until she had no choice but to laugh, and set her down again. “Come on!”
He ran out of the door, down stone steps worn by thousands of feet over hundreds of years until they had a groove in the centre, past others running, all shouting and laughing. The cloister was full of them – lessers, upper and lower, those journeymen who’d be leaving before their final test and the three others who’d be up against Vocho and perhaps Kacha. He ran up behind one, a staid and methodical boy three years older than Vocho who’d gained his journeyman’s two years past, and tipped his hat over his eyes before he ran on.
By the time he reached the entrance to the courtyard and stopped to ensure he was looking his best before he entered, he was fit to burst. The clockwork duellist shone ahead of them, looking down as though weighing each one’s worth. In his imagination Vocho saw her smile before the mechanism started, then her sword flew in thrusts and feints, blocks and ripostes. The perfect swordswoman, elegant and deadly, revered and famous.
The mechanism ran down, and Eneko strode onto the flagstones followed by a dozen masters. Late sunlight shone red on green and gold tunics, glinted off sword hilts and eyes. With a last thrust, the clockwork duellist put up her sword and stilled. There was no sound but the painful thud of Vocho’s heart, the twist of his breath.
Kacha appeared next to him. He grabbed her hand, wanting to kiss her and pull her with him, let her share in the moment. She didn’t seem to notice. Her face was still as a carved mask, eyes dark with whatever had been bothering her. He squashed a moment’s irritation. Couldn’t she be happy for him? Couldn’t he beat her to be the first at something? Just this once? He turned back to where Eneko had begun speaking.
“… proclaim a new master. I beg all your forgivenesses, but this is a special case.”
Special case. Had she heard that? No, she stood with all the animation of a stone. Maybe she was worried that for once he’d beaten her, got there first. He’d make sure not to rub it in too much. Maybe just a bit though, because he’d never been first at anything before. All right, maybe a lot.
“A service has already been performed, a service in the interests of the guild.”
What was Eneko talking about?
“The masters have agreed that this service shall suffice as the test. Now it only remains for the nominee to fight, in full view of us all, and force a master to a draw, or beat them. Same rules as usual for a master’s test – there are no rules, as there are none in the world outside this guild. All we ask is that you fight well and nobly. As seems good to you.”
A murmur ran around the assembly. Vocho frowned, his rock-solid certainty that he was to be made a master trembling just a touch. But who else? No one. He could beat them all. His hand gripped his sword, ready for his name to be called.
“Kacha, please step forward.”
Vocho was halfway through a pace before the words caught up with him and he faltered to a stop. The boy whose hat he’d tipped chuckled behind him. “Never mind, Voch. Better luck next time, eh?”
He whirled to face the boy, who shut up but didn’t stop smirking, then turned back to see Kacha advancing across the flagstones. Probably only he caught the hitch in her step, the quick glance as she sought him out. A complicated look, but he was too incensed to pay it any mind, and she was quick enough looking away, towards the duellist she was going to fight. Towards whoever had agreed to take her on, to mentor her as she negotiated the shallows of being a fully fledged duellist before she braved its depths.
Vocho’s hand twisted on the hilt of his sword and he ground his teeth as he watched. A crowd stood by the gates – not unusual, because the locals knew what the bells meant as well as any duellist and sometimes came t
o watch, though they’d get no further. Vocho recognised one of them. Petri something-or-other his name was, Petri from the river. Vocho wouldn’t have paid him any attention at all except for the way he was looking at Kacha. Like he admired her, like Vocho was nothing in comparison. Like Da had always looked at Kacha and not him.
Kacha stopped in the shadow of the clockwork duellist and waited for her opponent to name themselves.
Vocho wasn’t the only one open-mouthed when Guild Master Eneko stepped forward. He was naming her as his potential successor, as his apprentice at the least. But Kacha had to beat him or force him to a draw, and Eneko was good, more than good; he was great. He might not be the best fighter – being guild master needed more than just a talent with a blade – but Vocho knew he couldn’t beat him. Not yet, at least. One day, when he’d finished growing, perhaps. The question was, could Kacha?
And did Vocho want her to? The answer to that shocked him. No, he wanted to beat her, and not just a bit. Right now he’d happily draw blood. Perfect fucking Kacha, always first, always best. He looked up at the clockwork duellist, at her stern face. Please, just this once, hear me. Make her lose, make her look stupid, make her not perfect.
Eneko drew his sword and went through the forms. Salute, bow, come on guard. Kacha followed suit. A flick of Eneko’s eye and someone set the clock’s bell ringing, signalling the start.
They began at a punishing pace, one that they surely couldn’t keep up for long. Thrust, block, riposte, back and forth beneath the watching eyes of the clockwork duellist. The courtyard was silent except for their breath, the clang of blade on blade and the scuff of their feet.
Because the tests weren’t bound by the rules of sparring, some masters’ duels were soft little affairs – the mentor taking it a little easy to ensure a pass for their student, to minimise the risk of injury – symbolic things only. Frowned upon but it happened, sometimes obviously. Not this time, and Eneko was making sure everyone knew it. He went after Kacha with an aggression that surprised Vocho. The guild master had always seemed self-contained, placid almost. Now he launched himself across the arena with the energy of a man twenty years younger. Kacha held her own, kept his blade from her skin, but it was clear she’d be hard pushed to win. Vocho couldn’t decide if that pleased him or not. He wanted her to win, for her, when he thought on it, but the feelings that came before thought, that surged up without him asking, were hoping she’d lose, and lose badly. They made him feel sick, but he couldn’t stop them.
It looked like those darker wishes might be satisfied as Eneko forced Kacha back and back through sheer weight, brute strength and years of experience. Vocho glanced up at the clock – five more minutes before the final bell and she could claim a draw. He looked back at the duel just in time to see Eneko get past her guard and go for a move that was illegal in sparring but fair game in a master’s test, a face shot which scored a cut across one cheek, under her eye.
“Come on, come on,” Petri blurted out by the gate. Vocho spared him a look and was surprised to see the bland face scrunched into a scowl as he willed Kacha on. What was it to him?
Kacha managed to get clear, and Eneko gave her a tick of the clock to wipe the blood from her cheek. She had to go for the win now – no other way, no chance of a draw unless she blooded him back or disarmed him. Her face hardened into one Vocho knew well. She was pissed off and turning her anger into a determination to win at all costs. Vocho had been on the receiving end of that look more than once, and he’d probably deserved it at least half the time.
Eneko said something. Vocho couldn’t catch it but the gist was clear – come on and beat me, girl, if you can. A taunt. Exactly the wrong thing to say to Kacha, if you didn’t want a sword in your gut.
A sudden grin split her face under the blood, and for all she was his sister and he loved her when he remembered, Vocho was glad she wasn’t grinning at him. Especially when she shifted her feet just so. He knew that shift, knew that Kacha would spar within the rules but push them as far as they went when she needed to. No Ruffelo’s rules here, not in a master’s test.
Eneko came on with a sudden heavy thrust to her unguarded side, a move that would break her if it caught her. She moved into it, past it so the sword tickled her ear. Eneko’s face crumpled under a sharp elbow that stunned him – only for half a tick, but that was enough for Kacha to grab his sword hand with hers, twist the wrist just so and leap back with her own sword in one hand and Eneko’s in the other.
A long silence, and then Eneko raised his hands and smiled. “I yield.” Just before the clock struck its second sequence of bells to end the duel. A fix, no matter how good it had looked. Had to be, didn’t it? Eneko taking it easy on her, letting her win, making her look good, better than she was. Had to be.
Applause deafened Vocho as the lessers behind him voiced their approval and the crowd at the gate joined in. A new master, always cause for celebration. But Vocho had nothing to celebrate except a sick pit of jealousy in his stomach and the guilt of knowing he should be happy for Kacha, should be smiling as she bent to receive her master’s sword, as she took the oath to serve only herself and the guild, no other to come before, not spouse or child, for as long as she lived.
He did smile when she came towards him afterwards, nailed a grin to his face until his cheeks ached. Teased her a bit because that’s what Vocho always did and if he didn’t she’d guess what was under his smile. Told her Da would be proud of her, which was true enough. Da’d be so happy he’d crap bricks because his precious Kacha was apprenticed to the guild master. So he smiled and laughed, came up with a few witty comments that made her laugh in return and tried to make the dark thoughts go away. Yet that night, when the air was as dark as they were, he promised himself that of the two of them it wouldn’t be Kacha’s name they remembered. It wouldn’t be her that Da was proudest of.
Even if it killed them both.
Chapter Sixteen
Kacha burst out of the inn with no thought of hiding her face and the giveaway scar beneath her eye. She’d no thought for anything except getting away from Vocho. Leaving her lying, betraying, back-stabbing bastard of a brother behind.
The day was dying around her, the last of the red sunlight glancing off terracotta roofs crusted with soot. A whistle blew at one of the clocker factories behind the inn, swiftly followed by another and another, until maybe a dozen were in full voice and people began to spill out onto the street. Soot-smudged and weary from their day at work, they trudged along like so many giant ants.
Kacha worked her way through them, no real idea of where she was going except away. She still had the papers, she realised after a while, rustling under her shirt. What to do with them? Once she’d have known with no hesitation. She’d have taken them to Eneko and listened to his reasoning as he decided what to do. Or Petri. Or she’d have talked it over with Voch. Now she had nothing and no one except herself. She would have to do. She realised she was already on Ratchet Street, heading towards the palace. The Clockwork God loomed up ahead at the crossroads. Today it was left to the guild, right to the palace, matching her two realistic choices.
Left to the guild, to Eneko and what had been home. Back to echoing cloisters and running feet, clashing blades and kept promises, the rhythm of her whole life. Eneko might welcome her back, might arrange a pardon, might listen to her, but just as likely not. She’d broken his trust when she threw in her lot with Vocho, and with that one action she’d burned that bridge right down to the waterline.
Right to the palace. Her first instinct had been to warn the prelate, and it still seemed the right thing, the good thing. These papers meant war, she knew that if not much else. Maybe she’d even get a pardon out of it. Still, it was risky. Too risky, especially if half the rumours about him were true.
She looked up at the Clockwork God as he clacked through his motions. People left offerings at the church, but they left them here too, of a different sort. He bent down, cogs whirring, and his jointed fingers s
napped shut on a ragged piece of paper before he straightened. The plinth he stood on had its own motto etched into it – the only comfort is truth. The Clockwork God collected all the little truths so he might build a bigger one, the truth that was the answer to everything, and then everyone could live in peace, so Bakar said. So that’s what people brought to him, their own little honesties, plaintive pleas for the god to change the truths of their lives. The god took the piece of paper, appeared to read it and stowed it away behind a door over his heart. The actions were familiar, repeated over and over on rails, and yet… She knew he ran on gears and cogs, powered by the huge waterwheels under the great river that Bakar had discovered all those years ago. She knew he was only clockwork, that he was just a representation of the real god; they all did. But this time when the eyes passed over her, she could have sworn one iris shut for a moment – that he winked at her.
The papers weighed heavily under her shirt. She had a whole stack of truth, and Petri and others wanted her caught because of it, wanted her dead most likely, though she only knew a part of the story. She could warn the prelate, show him these papers as her proof, but she hesitated. Keep the evidence until she could warn Bakar, that’s what she had to do, what seemed good to her. Except one paper perhaps. She knelt down and placed it on the little platform. The god whirred and whizzed, bent down and took it in his brass fingers. Cogs ground as his eyes ran over the words and then, yes, he winked, she was sure of it, before he folded the paper, opened the door into his whirring heart and stowed it safely there. She hoped she could get it back if she needed it.
After that she felt lost. What she needed was somewhere to hole up and think things through, somewhere where no one would think to look for her, where she could plan her next move, plan a life without her brother in it. She looked up and smiled.