by Aidan Harte
Varro was preparing to relay the message when an answer came unprompted.
‘Khaaaaaheeeeee—’
‘It means eighteen,’ said Torbidda doubtfully.
‘Eighteen? What, in one day?’ Four exclaimed. ‘This is bunk!’
Suddenly animated, the pseudonaiad reformed as a square pillar, reared back and butted its ‘corner’ on the glass. The Confession Box shook, but Varro only laughed. The pseudonaiad lost cohesion for a few moments after the blow, then sluggishly reformed. Ripples undulated over its surface. Suddenly it struck again, hitting the same place.
‘Settle down now,’ said Varro, once more pumping on the switch.
A crack appeared in the glass, jerkily spreading out, fast and slow, but always getting wider.
‘… perhaps we should return to this another time.’
Four was first up the ladder, Leto fast behind him.
Varro called, ‘Spinther, wind up that wheel, would you, there’s a good boy. The rest of you, take your time, nice and orderly.’
The pseudonaiad struck the glass again, and the climbers’ pace speeded up.
CraAAAck
‘Let me up! Let me up!’ Varro pushed by Torbidda and pulled a girl off the ladder. Torbidda helped her up, all the while keeping his eye on the box.
The pseudonaiad again flowed over the glass, studying the crack, judging what it needed. A few drips fell from the crack and wriggled on the floor like worms. It reeled back again.
KRAAK
The glass shattered and the children screamed as the water came rushing through the fracture and hit the ground. It reformed quickly, orientated itself on its human quarries and threw itself at the ladder, narrowly missing a boy who pulled his foot away with a yelp. Torbidda and the girl were stranded in the pit with this monster. Above, Varro checked the control board and shouted ‘Keep turning, Spinther! Needs a little more.’
Varro ran to the side of the pit. The class were watching the pair stranded below with interest. No one offered to help.
‘Shock it!’ cried Torbidda.
‘It’s not charged yet. You!’ Varro pulled Four out the circle. ‘Help Spinther turn it.’ He pushed him towards Leto. He looked back down and shouted, ‘Keep moving, Cadets! Don’t let it corner you.’
‘What are you doing?’ said Leto as Four pulled against him on the wheel, making it impossible to turn.
‘Sixty’s going to get a bath after all!’
The male Fusus twin was circling. Leto didn’t have time to argue – and anyway, it would be pointless. He let the Fuscus boy get behind him, then let go of the wheel, which yanked Four off his feet as it spun wildly in the direction Four had been pulling. Leto elbowed the Fuscus boy in the nose, then reached out with one hand to brace the wheel before turning back to Four, who was still sprawled flat. He stomped hard on Four’s stomach then he returned to the wheel and started winding desperately.
The girl, terrified, clung to Torbidda as the pseudonaiad reared up. If he did nothing, they would drown together. He needed more time.
He elbowed her in the face and dived aside as the water stampeded, enveloping the stunned girl as Torbidda ran to the other side of the Confession Box. He slammed the door behind him, but there was no lock – why would there be? As he clung onto the handle, the girl dropped lifelessly out of the pillar of water, which collapsed into a wave and crashed against the glass.
Torbidda felt it pulling against the other side. He couldn’t hold it much longer. He screamed into the head set, ‘Help!’
The door was wrestled open, Torbidda screamed and the water filled the compartment.
Then there was pain, and blue light—
When he awoke, the last of the lifeless water was going down the drain, once more subject to gravity. Varro was looking down at him with an expression of wonder, and Leto with one of concern.
Torbidda noticed his bloody lip. ‘You fought for me, Spinther? Idiota.’
‘Don’t take it to heart,’ said Leto. ‘I didn’t have time to think it through.’
‘Oh, what a mess,’ said Varro, regarding the girl’s body. She was dead, with no wound but the bloody nose Torbidda had given her. ‘I don’t suppose anyone knows her name?’
‘I know her number,’ Torbidda said. ‘It was Eighteen.’
CHAPTER 6
Every workstation had a fresh subject, hyperventilating and struggling against their bonds, ready for dissection.
‘Sixty! Big day! Excited?’
Torbidda responded dutifully, ‘Very, sir.’ Varro’s attentive-ness, stemming from guilt, no doubt, had rapidly become annoying. Torbidda was worried that it would mark him as a Naturalist partisan.
Varro shuffled to the top of cave. ‘Now, pace yourself. You’ve just one subject each. You need to keep it fresh until noon, which is, let’s see’ – he glanced at a water-clock – ‘three hours. You’ll be surprised how much punishment a subject can bear if you avoid the major organs.’
They’d had weeks of lectures and cadaver butchery, and this was their first real dissection. Varro, shaken by the Confession Box accident, had brought in those second-years specialising in Anatomy to assist. The monitor tutted as she walked past Torbidda’s station. ‘Call that secure? You won’t learn much wrestling the subject for the scalpel.’
She re-fastened the straps and then looked at him, appraising his fresh black eye. ‘Why don’t you fight back?’
Torbidda carefully laid out his tools. ‘He’s not that much trouble.’
‘You should make eye-contact when you lie. Makes it more convincing.’
As the students got under way, the screaming started.
Torbidda smiled in embarrassment. ‘He’ll get bored and move on.’
She looked at him intensely. ‘Listen, you have to start thinking long-term. If you take it from Four, others will follow. You don’t know what’s coming in the next few months. I didn’t.’ She looked around again and then pulled up her tunic. An ugly pink scar bisected her flank in the shape of an N. ‘I didn’t realise how fast it could escalate. This saved my life. It told me what I had to do to survive.’
Torbidda watched as she circled the room, helping other students. She wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already worked out – so why was he waiting? He wasn’t scared, exactly. He had just exepected an adult to step in at some point – that was how childhood worked. Those were the rules.
When she returned, he asked, ‘What should I do?’
‘Give him a target.’
Her name was Agrippina. Her father was a farmer, one of the few still trying to make a living raising chickens and harvesting dust in the Concordian contato. At the end of another drought year he’d realised the worth of his unusually canny daughter. He made the trek to the city bringing her in the trailer with the other livestock. Although she was determined not to let anyone ever own her again, she wasn’t bitter. Her father had done them both a favour.
‘I love it here,’ she said simply.
Every second-year had this reverence. Torbidda was beginning to understand where it came from. The Guild was a machine: it never gave back more than you put in, but it never promised anything, and it never lied either.
‘Madonna, what a din!’ exclaimed Varro. ‘I told you: cut the vocal cords first!’
Initially, the complete absence of rules gave rise to clumsy sexual experimentation late at night. That carnal holiday didn’t last. Eventually there was no one foolish enough to drop their guard. Nights were one long tense silence now.
Torbidda could hear the approaching whispers. He knew what was imminent; Agrippina had warned him. He had brought this on himself by his servility. It was dark and he was outnumbered here; there was nothing for it but to endure. They came in strength, rushing in to overturn his mattress, and piled on, whooping and hollering. Blows rained down on him in quick succession, on his legs, torso and face. It was not a serious attack – there was nothing sharp involved. He covered his head and waited for the end. Four pr
obably thought he was making an example, but you don’t make examples when nobody can see.
You wait for daylight.
Torbidda rose before the bell and limped to the sinks to wash the matted blood from his body. He entered the refectory and sat alone, eating breakfast through scabbed lips, hood down to show his bruises to the world. Naturally everyone ignored him; talking to a sinking Cadet was impolitic. As Four and his followers filed by Torbidda, each greeted him with a smack on the back on his head.
‘Morning.’
‘Morning.’
‘Morning.’
‘Morning.’
Torbidda’s swollen face usefully masked his anger – though the anger wasn’t directed at Four but at himself. He had survived the night, but what incompetence, to have let it come to this.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. ‘You all right?’
Leto’s imprudence was touching. He had troubles of his own with the Fuscus twins. The New City brats were minor nobility; their family had a long-running feud with the Spinthers. Leto’s indifference to the incestuous quarrels of the old nobility infuriated them nearly as much as his indifference to his status, which was far grander than theirs.
‘Go away.’
‘What? I’m not going to— Look, I wasn’t one of them last night—’
‘I know that! Please, go, but first hit me.’
Leto’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you planning?’
‘Please.’
‘Fine!’ he shouted and struck Torbidda hard on the back of the head. There was general laughter as he walked away.
‘Even Spinther’s got sick of the smell,’ Four drawled.
Torbidda limped through the day, dutifully dissected, solved problems and calculated and drew and read, and all the while dispassionately examined his plan from different angles, holding it up to the light to see its flaws.
He arrived early for Mechanics to select a workstation that would put his back to the classroom. He powered up his water-saw and cut a small wedge of wood. He took his half-carved table leg from the lathe and practised swinging it, getting the feel of its weight and balance. After class began he informed Flaccus that there was an impatient consul waiting for him in his tower. Flaccus left in a flap, telling the class to continue work. Torbidda followed him to the door, wedge in hand, but there was no need for it. Flaccus had left his keys behind.
Torbidda turned the lock and pocketed the keys. Then he returned to his own isolated workstation, taking care to shuffle past Four’s desk. The absence of adult supervision would be irresistible – he knew Four still thought of the selectors as surrogate parents. He busied himself splitting wood with water. With the din from the saws it would be impossible to hear Four’s approach, so he just had to be ready.
When it came, time seemed to slow. An arm came around his neck; the other braced his forehead. Four meant to tip him towards the blade – he probably just planned to scare him. Instead of resisting, Torbidda pulled, leaning to the left as he went forwards, and Four’s arm went into the water’s path. There was a whipping sound and the stream ran red for a moment. Four’s scream was louder than the saw.
Now Torbidda pushed against his weight and Four fell backwards, trying to keep his balance even as the blood spewed from his severed forearm. Torbidda snatched up the table leg as he turned and put his whole body behind it. It caught Four under the jaw and lifted his feet from the ground.
He landed on his back and lay there, coughing blood, not understanding what had happened – or what was happening now. His eyes darted from his pumping wound to the onlooking classroom.
‘Please,’ he gargled, ‘get help!’
One of his crew ran to the door, only to discover it was locked.
‘I’ve got the key,’ Torbidda said clearly.
Four’s crew dared each other to rush him, but a minute passed and still no one made a move. He stood guard over Four until the blood slowed to a languid ebb. At the end of it, Torbidda had the high ground. They had watched their leader die, and everyone else had watched them watching.
When Torbidda unlocked the door, Flaccus was waiting. Torbidda got a slap for locking him out of his own classroom and a mop for the mess. The selector didn’t mention Four. No one did. He was forgotten before his blood was mopped up.
CHAPTER 7
Heads turned in the refectory as Torbidda sat at the second-years’ table.
Agrippina smiled. ‘I didn’t invite you to join me. There are rules, you know.’
‘But just one counts.’
Agrippina laughed. ‘I heard about your woodwork.’
‘Already?’
‘I see you’ve been practising eye-contact – but don’t pretend to be surprised. Everyone’s talking about it.’
Torbidda felt no elation about the killing, nor any remorse. He wondered if he had always been so heartless, or whether it was a logical response to a heartless environment. He knew now why congress was civil amongst the second-years: they all knew the consequences. They still quarrelled, but their quarrels were swift, unflinching things and the loser was not left bruised or lame but out in the cold, another example to his peers.
Agrippina studied him coolly. ‘You did what you had to. I know you’re too smart to waste your time with guilt, but don’t start revelling in killing either. Some Cadets start thinking it’s that type of competition, and they don’t last.’
‘I understand. It’s a means to an end. I don’t understand why you care.’
‘You helped me.’
‘True but you didn’t have to reciprocate. I’m only a first-year.’
‘Exactly. You’re talented and you won’t ever be competition. I’ll need competent allies when I become Third Apprentice.’
‘Don’t you mean if?’
‘I mean when.’
He offered his hand. ‘My name’s Torbidda.’
First-bloods were students to watch. He’d set a record in so quickly learning the Guild’s key lesson – that notoriety was safer than anonymity – but it would take more than one killing to impress the selectors; they had seen the passage of numerous prodigies. A few, including the current Third Apprentice, fulfilled their promise. Most, like Giovanni Bernoulli, grandson of the Stupor Mundi, did not.
A fearsome season followed as Torbidda’s peers raced to catch up, but still there was more to learn than fear; there was delight, discovery and inspiration as Cadets began to discover their particular affinities for individual subjects.
‘… Architecture begins and ends with Man. Literally. The Etruscans compared man’s footprint with his height and replicated the ratio in their temples. See, the capita of this column, one sixth. There are no accidents. What made this idea important, anyone? You, Spinther.’
Leto yawned. Aside from the practicalities of bridges and siege-engines, architecture bored him. ‘It was new?’
‘Even bad ideas are young once,’ Varro said impatiently. ‘Anyone?’
‘A pleasing ratio,’ Torbidda said, ‘applied consistently makes a pleasing building.’
The Drawing Hall was a huge space embellished with a brighter touch than Bernoulli’s. It had once been a scriptorium, and the dappled light that filled it hummed of noble dreams and honeyed memories. A line drawn here had clarity as nowhere else. Before the Guild overthrew the Curia, before her engineers became soldiers, their study was innocent; you could see it in the spiralling plant motifs tumbling joyfully from the columns that interlaced like bending trees. The scribes had willingly shared their desks with the Guild’s draftsmen, and both celebrated the Word of God: the scribes paid homage by embellishing it, the engineers by uncovering the gears of his great work, Nature.
The light was dispersed further by several three-braccia-wide parabolic mirrors. The artefacts, dating from the Guild’s early days, leaned against the walls like the discarded shields of some Homeric band. Inspired by fanciful legends of Archimedes, the Curia had attempted to create a weapon using giant mirrors to focus and target light. T
hese optical experiments were discontinued after Bernoulli demonstrated water’s vastly greater potential.
But the Maestro was gone, and the few draftsmen required now worked under the harsh mechanical lights of the factories. An age of synthesis required different men, Flaccus said; he called it Progress. Like the old scribes, these new draftsmen were copyists who looked upon original creation as vanity. If a war-machine was needed, no one sat down to draw it. Instead, one filed a request to the Collegio dei Consoli, who forwarded it to a clerk, who consulted the index and rooted out the appropriate design. But it was obvious that the age of discovery had never ended for Varro. He especially enjoyed the paradoxical aspects of architecture, the illusions employed to flood the hearts of men with joy or awe or dread. ‘See how a pillar will appear straight only if it bulges at the centre. If it was straight it would not appear straight.’
‘Entasis,’ said Torbidda, struggling with the Greek.
‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ Varro laughed. ‘It’s good to know words you can’t pronounce; a true student must outstrip his teacher’s pace! Entasis. What perversion that lovely word implies – that perfection displeases Man. And experience bears this out, does it not? A perfectly tuned instrument sounds wrong; there must be twelve uneven semitones in an octave to please our imperfect ears. Yes children, we prefer the lie.’
While Varro carelessly imparted his eccentric doctrines, Flaccus trod a more cautious path. Any interpretation of Bernoulli’s legacy necessarily favoured one of the factions at war for the Guild. The Empiricists championed the antediluvian Bernoulli, the youthful iconoclast, the first among a generation of enginers of equal wisdom, with all his energy, his anti-clericalism, his military triumphs. The Naturalists’ idol was the postdiluvian philosopher passing from mere knowledge into wisdom, soberly weighing his famous deeds and finding them petty, electing instead to remake the world after he had washed it clean. He was David and Goliath, joyful giant-killer and tyrant executioner. All of the Collegio and two of the Apprentices were Empiricists, so naturally Flaccus concentrated on the younger Bernoulli, skating over those later years with no stronger admonition than ‘Regrettable’.