“Your mechanical has a difficult time understanding orders,” the mayor said.
“I ordered Broom to follow me, sir,” Vasyl replied, keeping his voice even despite the implied criticism. “He does what he is told, no more, no less. It is the nature of all mechanicals. Even yours.”
“Hm.” The mayor sipped from his goblet, then tried to hand it back to his mechanical, who didn’t move. “Take this,” he said irritably, and the mechanical obeyed. “You know the nature of the challenge, boy?”
Boy? Vasyl bristled. He was nearly thirty, and just because he had never married didn’t mean he was less a man. Women certainly looked at him. Petro said many called him Vasyl the Fair. But what with one thing and another, he had never married. Good looks notwithstanding, Vasyl was just a tinker who repaired machines for other people, not a crafter who built them new. It didn’t matter that the machines worked better after he repaired them—people hated paying the tinker, and they paid as little as possible.
The lack of money put off most women, and the ones who had shown interest hadn’t stimulated Vasyl’s interest in return. But now talk was going around that the tinker couldn’t find a wife, and it was time to do the right thing, be a man. Not a boy.
“I will complete your task,” he said stiffly, “and prove myself worthy of your daughter’s hand.”
“And if you fail,” the mayor added, “it means your head and hands on my table.”
The words landed like lead slabs. Petro blanched, and mutters whispered through the crowd.
“Yes,” Vasyl said. His knuckles were white and his chest felt constricted by bands of brass. Broom waited patiently, little puffs of steam escaping from his seams, while Hanna still refused to look at Vasyl.
“Very well,” the mayor said, and the crowd went silent. “Your task shall be this.”
Vasyl held his breath. The only sound was Broom’s puffing.
“Create for me,” the mayor pronounced, “a mechanical that can think for itself.”
A moment of silence followed. Then the crowd broke into an excited babble that rushed against Vasyl’s ears. Petro staggered.
“A mechanical that can think for itself?” Vasyl said. “But that’s—”
“You have accepted the challenge.” The mayor rose. “You have three days.”
He took Hanna’s hand and swept off the platform, accidentally leaving his mechanical behind.
“Can it be done, Vaska?” Petro demanded as they walked the cobblestoned streets. “Is it possible to make a mechanical that can think for itself?”
“I don’t know.” Vasyl hunched forward, hands in his pockets, pack dragging at his back. “You were right, Petya. I’m a fool.”
Broom clattered down the cobblestone street behind them. He—Vasyl always thought of Broom as he—managed to look worried, despite a lack of facial features. Every so often he snatched up a piece of detritus from the walkway and tossed it with disdain into the gutter.
Petro put a heavily muscled arm around Vasyl’s neck. “We need food and we need a drink,” he decided, “especially a drink. And you will spend the night at my house while we work on this problem together.”
“I shouldn’t—”
“‘On the thirteenth night of October,’” Petro interrupted, quoting the old story, “‘Baba Yaga seeks her bones, and woe to he who walks alone.’ You will sleep on my stove, and we’ll start fresh in the morning. No arguments.”
He steered Vasyl toward his own house, the one behind his forge. The few people on the street, their friends and neighbors, ignored them both, uncertain how to react to Vasyl’s gesture in the square. But most people had already closed their shutters, and several doorsteps had plates of food on them.
A cold fear about the entire affair grew in Vasyl’s stomach, and he became more and more grateful for Petro’s powerful arm around him, though he would never have said so. Instead, he allowed Petro to drag him toward the smithy.
Petro’s forge and house occupied the back of a little square with a fountain in it. Other businesses occupied other stores, and the owners lived above them. Since it was Sunday, Petro’s forge was cold and deserted. The house behind it was small and all his own. As he always did, Vasyl compared the cozy place to his own cramped workshop with its narrow bed in the corner and gave a mental sigh.
Petro thrust the door open. “I’m home!”
A nine-year-old girl with brown braids scampered across the little kitchen and flung herself into Petro’s arms. “Papa! Uncle Vaska! Broom!”
Petro lifted the girl high and kissed her cheek. “How good were you while I was gone, Olena?”
She spread her arms wide. “This good. I made supper, and I was sure Uncle Vaska was coming, so I made sure to put out food for him, too. And I’ll make an extra plate for her.”
“Baba Yaga’s place to take,” Petro said, “and our place to give.”
“Everyone is talking about Uncle Vaska,” she said anxiously as Petro put her down. Broom shut the door and Vasyl shrugged out of his pack. “Are you going to marry that girl, Uncle?”
“We’ll see, dearest,” Vasyl said.
“I don’t want you to.” Olena’s tone was serious. “I want you to move in with us and fix toys for children and be my uncle forever.”
He forced a smile and twisted one of her pigtails around his finger. “Are you jealous, little one? Perhaps you want to marry me?”
She made a face. “No. I want to marry someone who likes girls.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Petro cleared his throat, but before he could say anything, Vasyl jumped in.
“I will always be Uncle Vaska,” he promised. “No matter what. Now, how about we eat supper, and then Broom can help clean up?”
It was hog-butchering season, and on the table Olena had set a long, wide strip of white pork fat still on the skin, a loaf of fragrant dark bread, several cloves of garlic, a dish of salt, a bottle of vodka, and a pot of tea. The three of them sliced rich pieces of fat off the skin and ate them on the bread, alternating with cloves of garlic dipped in salt. The extra plate sat on one corner of the table, waiting to be put outside. Vasyl and Petro drank vodka while Olena drank sweet tea. Vasyl also drank in the scene itself. The cozy kitchen, the warm stove, the yellow lamp, the brass mechanical. The little girl who was a daughter to him in all but name. The strong, outspoken man who was his best friend and the one person he could always lean on. He wished it could go on forever.
Broom, at Olena’s order, gathered up the dishes and took them to the washtub while Olena poured hot water over them from the kettle on the ceramic stove.
Petro poured more vodka into their cups. “Why, Vaska?”
Vasyl knew what he meant, but he wanted to hold on to the moment a bit longer, so he fell back on his usual trick. “I’m sorry, Petro. It must have been difficult to watch that today.”
“Of course it was,” Petro said thickly. “You are like my own brother. When you went up there, my hands were ice.”
“You felt helpless.”
“No man likes that feeling.” Petro thumped his glass on the table. “Especially when someone he…when his brother does something dangerous and foolish.”
Vasyl straightened in his chair. What had Petro been about to say? He wanted to ask, but he knew from experience that would be a mistake. Petro was falling into the rhythm of speaking now, and Vasyl let himself fade away, become the listener. It was a skill he had honed over many years. When people were talking to you, they weren’t hitting.
“It was foolish,” he said, echoing Petro’s last statement.
“And now we both have to pay the price.” Petro’s dark eyes were serious. “Sometimes I don’t understand you, Vaska. You have everything—looks, intelligence, a strong body—but you always fail.”
“I always fail,” Vasyl the echo replied.
“So why today?”
The question caught Vasyl off guard. “What?”
“The mayor put his daughter on
display six other Sundays. Why did you pick this Sunday to step forward?” Petro leaned forward again. “Why this sudden need to get married?”
Petro fell silent, waiting, and the fine moment ended. Vasyl sighed. “I’m tired of being alone, Petya. I want to wake up with someone together and spend days together and go to bed together.”
“I understand loneliness,” Petro said. “After nine years, I understand. But to relieve yours, you could choose Yilka, the baker’s daughter, or Larissa, the shoemaker’s sister. Instead you risk your life to choose Hanna, the mayor’s daughter. It hurts me that I don’t understand why.” He thumped his chest. “Right here it hurts. So, why her and why today?”
“I’m also tired of being poor,” Vasyl blurted. “And I felt bad for her because she has to sit up there every week with no one to choose her. And now…I wish I could take it back. I am a fool. No one can build a mechanical that thinks for itself.”
Olena and Broom continued with their work. Broom was washing dishes while Olena swept the floor. The men kept their voices low, but Vasyl was sure Olena heard every word. Children always did.
Petro squeezed Vasyl’s forearm. Vasyl felt as though he should pull away, but he was too full and too tired and too tense to bother. Besides, the physical contact was reassuring. “Nothing is impossible,” he said stoutly. “I will help you, my brother. But first, you must answer the question you have been avoiding.”
Vasyl felt nervous again. “What question have I been avoiding?”
“Why didn’t you make this mess last week or the week before? Why today, of all days?”
Vasyl opened his mouth to say he didn’t know why. Then he looked at the extra plate of food and at the gathering gloom outside the windows, and he realized he did know why.
“It would be easier to show you than tell you. But, Olena—”
“If you are going out, I am staying in,” Olena said.
Petro clambered to his feet. “You’re not going out!”
“I must.” Vasyl dropped the half-empty vodka bottle and the rest of the bread into a sack and pulled on his coat and pack. “I went up there today because tonight is her night, and I knew I might need help.”
Petro’s dark eyes went wide. “You want to visit Baba Yaga?”
“I have no idea how to make a mechanical think for itself. She might.”
“She’ll eat you alive!”
“And the mayor’s punishment is kinder?” Vasyl hefted the sack. “If you want to come, then come. I have to leave now.”
Petro looked torn. He glanced at his friend and then at his daughter. Vasyl felt a small stab of jealousy. Despite his earlier statement, he didn’t really want to do this alone—he had used up his courage for the week facing down the mayor—and he badly wanted Petro to come with him. When they were younger, Petro would have come without hesitation. But now Petro was a family man, and family men didn’t leave their families to help friends.
Vasyl admonished himself. He was being unfair. Still…
“Go, Papa,” Olena said. “I am not frightened. As long as I do not go outside, she will not touch me.”
A soft rumble outside made Vasyl hurry to the door. “Quick!”
Petro kissed Olena’s cheek, snatched up his own coat, and ran outside with Vasyl. Vasyl dropped the plate of food on the doorstep, and the two men ran out to the deserted square. Every front step had a plate on it. Every window was shuttered tight.
“Do you see anything?” Petro was looking at the darkening sky.
“There!” Vasyl pointed. A streak of light rushed overhead and west. At the front of it was a strange contraption of iron and brass. It was shaped like a giant bowl or mortar, held together with an intricate pattern of rivets. On the back were fastened a pair of engines that blasted fire and light, carrying the mortar just high enough to clear the rooftops of Kiev. Vasyl took an involuntary step backward, and the autumn air grew colder. In the mortar stood a tall, thin hag in an earth-brown dress. Her gray hair streamed out behind her, and she steered with a rudder made from a brass pestle. The woman glanced down and her hard eyes met Vasyl’s for a tiny moment. His blood turned to thin ice water. Then she was gone, leaving a trail of smoke and thunder in the sky.
“I can’t believe I am actually saying this,” Petro said, “but we must hurry if we want to follow her.”
The two men ran through the empty streets of Kiev, their boots ringing on cobblestones. Ahead of them, the spreading trail of smoke arced downward as the hag brought her mortar in among the buildings, close to ground. Vasyl ran until his ribs burned, still following the smoke trail with Petro at his side. Unfortunately, the city grew too dark and the smoke trail too thin. They lost the path.
“Where now?” Petro asked.
Vasyl scanned the street. He could smell the sharp exhaust from paraffin oil. All the houses they had passed sported plates of food, but here several of the plates had been emptied, and a number had been flipped upside down, as if someone moving at great speed had snatched the food from them without pausing.
“This way.” He led Petro down the street, following the trail of empty plates, until he came to an intersection. The plates on the street in three directions were still full. Vasyl peered nervously down the narrow fourth street. It was dark as a wolf’s mouth. The plate on the first doorstep, just visible in the pale light at the intersection, was empty.
“I didn’t think to bring a light,” Vasyl whispered. “Did you?”
Petro shook his head. “How do we—?”
A rattling noise made Vasyl jump, and his heart beat at the back of his throat. Broom scuttled up, bobbing anxiously.
“Broom!” Vasyl gasped. “What in God’s name?”
“Did you order him not to follow you anymore?”
“I forgot,” Vasyl admitted sheepishly. “But as long as he’s here, we can use him. Broom, light, please.”
There was a pop, and from the spot where Broom’s staff belled outward a beam of blue light speared down to illuminate the cobblestones. Broom bounced up and down, apparently pleased.
“Very nice, Broom,” Vasyl said. “Walk beside me.”
They entered the street with Broom lighting the way. All the windows were shuttered, and every doorstep plate was empty. Stony walls pressed inward, and the air dripped with smells of urine, garbage, and paraffin oil exhaust, which told Vasyl they were going the right way. The street made a dogleg and ended in a square. Vasyl sucked in a breath and Petro put a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder. Even Broom’s little light quivered.
Before them stood a fence made of bones. Electricity arced in ladders up fence posts made of femurs and snapped off the skulls that sat atop them. The bones were inlaid with iron, and sparks snarled around the metal, bringing to Vasyl a mixture of fear and admiration. He swallowed around his pounding heart and wiped sweaty palms on oil-stained trousers. The fence blocked the entire alley, and beyond it…
A creak and a thud, and another creak and another thud pounded the cobblestones beyond the fence. A metal cottage occupied a square beyond the awful fence. Rust streaked the sides and the roof, and a heavy iron bar held the door shut. Strange enough that a cottage should be made of metal and sitting in the middle of a little square in Kiev, but this house was supported by a pair of enormous bird legs made of brass. Exposed pistons creaked and hissed as each leg moved. The feet came up and down, thudding and thumping and creaking and hissing on the cobblestones, ready to crush anything that dared come close. Vasyl stared at the structure, simultaneously fascinated and frightened.
“How do we get past this fence?” asked Petro in a hushed voice. “If we touch it, we will die.”
“If I touch it,” Vasyl replied, also hushed. “You are staying here.”
“You aren’t going in there without me.”
“Yes? And who will take care of little Olena if you die?”
That silenced Petro, though his face clouded and it was clear that he wanted to disagree further. Vasyl pulled off his tinker�
��s pack and rummaged through it until he found some wire and a pair of wooden tongs.
“This will do.” He used the tongs to connect one end of the wire to the fence, while the other end dragged on the ground. With a pop and a shower of sparks, the electric current vanished.
“It’s a simple series circuit,” Vasyl said to Petro’s unasked question. “Easy enough to interrupt if you know what you’re doing.” Still, he used the tongs instead of his hands to push at a section that looked like a gate. It swung open with a tooth-grating screech. At the sound, the cottage beyond stopped moving on its strange bird legs. With a dreadful creak, it turned toward Vasyl as if the front windows were staring eyes.
“Uh-oh,” Vasyl said. “We’re supposed to say something. A password. What is it?”
“How should I know?” Petro hissed.
Broom managed a tiny whimpering sound. The cottage took a step toward them, then another and another. It leaned angrily forward. Old stories flashed through Vasyl’s head. The hut appeared on the thirteenth night of October each year. Anyone who touched the fence would die. To make it stop dancing, you said—
“Little hut, little hut!” Vasyl called. “Turn your back to the forest and your face to me!”
The cottage continued to stomp toward them, now only a few steps away. Broom quivered. Vasyl desperately glanced left and right, but there was nowhere to run to. His bowels turned to water. The hut thundered forward. He shouted the words again, but there was no effect.
“Little hut, little hut!” Petro cried. “Turn your back to the city and your face to me!”
The cottage came to a halt a mere step away, one foot raised to crush them. Then it lowered itself to the ground like a hen settling onto a nest.
“We aren’t in the forest,” Petro said calmly.
Vasyl drooped with relief. “I’m glad you’re here, Petya.”
“Then let me come in with you.”
“You know she won’t allow that,” Vasyl replied with a shake of his head.
“I’ll wait out here.” Petro folded his arms. “All night, if I have to.”
“All right.” Vasyl succumbed to temptation and gave Petro a fast hug. “Here goes.”
Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables Page 3