The Clockwork Dynasty

by Daniel H. Wilson

  The silver rings writhe with blue sparks and a breeze seems to rustle over Peter’s body. His thick hair lifts, shivering as though it were weightless. Chest thrusting out, his head tilts back as his entire body rises.

  Peter’s long lean body hovers, the fabric of his clothes rippling.

  The machine has grown quieter, the thrum dropped an octave into a nearly subsonic groan. Standing beside Batuo, I rest my fingertips along the edge of the table. It is cool, vibrating nearly imperceptibly. Silently, two pools of silver liquid surge into a shallow trough that wraps around the tabletop.

  One by one, beads of the mirrorlike liquid separate, dribbling straight up. They separate into shuddering spherical droplets that keep drifting. In the air, the droplets solidify into larger globules. The liquid metal swirls, hardening and softening.

  “This technology doesn’t exist,” I whisper.

  “Don’t be silly,” replies Batuo. “You’re looking at it.”

  Batuo slides his hands into what looks like a pair of brass knuckles resting on the control pedestal. As his arms move, the liquid shifts in tandem with his motions. Fingers wrapped in metal, Batuo is controlling the shimmering liquid.

  The silver rings glow a brighter blue and an electrical haze spreads over the cylinder of space around Peter. As the liquid touches him it turns translucent, revealing a blurry image of his skeleton and internal organs. This machine isn’t slicing him into pieces, it’s filtering into his body and displaying what’s happening inside.

  Batuo concentrates, waving his hands in subtle undulations. He looks oddly like an old man doing Tai Chi in the park. The liquid metal flows through Peter’s body, sliding across and into his face, neck, and shoulders. All around his torso, tiny pellets of buckshot are puckering his skin and wriggling out, ejected, dropping to the tabletop with tinking sounds.

  As Batuo works, I recognize a familiar crescent outline glowing in the depths of Peter’s rib cage. The shape is fitted into a reinforced shell mounted at the center of Peter’s torso—cocooned in muscular layers of metal and plastic. And in the hazy flickering light, I see a symbol on it.

  Peter has a relic—just like the one hanging around my neck.

  The liquid metal slithers down Peter’s body, closing around his knee, injecting itself into the shattered joint. Ribbons of it solidify and stay in place to heal the fractured material. Shredded flesh and broken pieces of Peter’s knee are expelled, floating like fallen leaves toward the table. Meanwhile, the liquid is shrinking, losing mass as pieces solidify to form internal parts. Finally, the remaining metal drips back to the table, leaving the pink skin of Peter’s restored knee visible through his shredded pants.

  Peter’s body lowers back to the table and the machine goes silent. He lies still, his newly repaired arms and legs laid out stiffly. His eyes are closed, and an occasional spark still dances over his face. Batuo sucks air between his teeth and drops the brass knuckle devices to the control pedestal.

  “What?” I ask.

  Head bowed, Batuo steps away from the machine.

  “What is it?” I repeat.

  “Inevitability,” he responds, dejection in his voice. “Peter’s anima, the source of his power and reason, has been knocked loose of its cradle. The last of his energy stores have leaked away. His hibernation will last another few days, and then he will fall into the long sleep.”

  “What can we do?”

  “We have repaired his body, but it is not so easy to replenish his soul.”

  “You’re talking about that thing in his chest, with the symbol?”

  “Each avtomat has a unique anima—our mind, memories, and will. The symbol written upon it is his true self, the Word he lives by.”

  My fingers creep to my neck, pressed to my throat.

  “Without the mind, the body is dust,” says Batuo. “A vessel without its anima is but a husk—it cannot perceive or act. But when placed in the cradle of its own unique vessel, anima will express itself as…avtomat.”

  I reach into the neck of my shirt and pull out the relic that hangs there, letting it dangle by its chain. Batuo sees it and his eyes widen, words dying in his throat.

  “I’ve been asking myself what this is for a long time,” I say. “And all along I should have been asking who.”

  28

  INDIA, 1751

  The Nawab of the Carnatic is intent on breaking his long siege in Arcot. His plan is to bring down the reinforced front gate of our garrison using one of India’s most incredible natural resources, the brute strength of armored war elephants. As the first hint of predawn stains the sky, I am sprinting at top speed into the middle of our encampment.

  “To the walls!” I’m shouting to the malnourished remnants of John Company. “To the Delhi gate!”

  Around me, the skeletal British troops are beginning to stir. Bleary-eyed and confused, they stand up beside extinguished campfires made of looted furniture. The boys are starving but well trained, instinctively gathering their flintlocks and powder.

  “Prepare for attack!” someone shouts.

  Dozens of men are already trotting toward the gate. A sergeant barks orders at those slower to stir, his voice rising as the ground begins to shake.

  A sentry at the gate finally sounds his horn.

  The meandering line of torches, pikes, and beasts must have become visible in the outer city, siege breakers rampaging toward our gates with a thousand sepoys reinforcing from behind.

  I sprint back toward my favorite spot on the parapet, hearing the strange trumpeting screams of the elephants over the chirping of morning birds. Climbing the sagging bones of the wall, I clamber onto my abandoned ledge.

  Moving quickly, I reclaim my musket and don my red coat. I jam my tricorne hat over my head and peer over the edge. A river of turbaned sepoys is snaking across no-man’s-land on a side route toward an old breach in the wall, firing arrows and waving swords and spears. Some are carrying ladders hewn of rough wood from the forest.

  It’s a dual attack, elephants on the gates and men at the breach.

  “Escalade!” I shout to my allies. In the dawn, I can make out pairs of red jackets swarming up the interior fort walls. Surplus muskets from men lost long ago have been laid out to form loading relays. Alerted to this sneak attack, the men take new positions to repel the horde with superior weaponry.

  I hear the first snaps of what will soon be near-continuous fire.

  Farther along the wall, a contingent of sepoy pikemen are closing in on our main gate, spurring gaudily decorated war elephants onward with jabs to their great quivering flanks. The elephants are a horrific sight, faces wreathed in iron masks, tusks capped in gold, huge armored foreheads already butting into the wood of the gate. If they knock down the barricade, our camp will be flooded by thousands of enemy.

  Time slows for me, the seconds counted off by the metronome of gunshots.

  Loading my musket, I steady my barrel with a steel grasp and fire a precise shot at the nearest elephant. I ignore the hundreds of human attackers and the splintering gate, targeting the beast’s tender ears, vulnerable to a lateral attack. My first few shots send the lead elephant rearing back in confusion, disturbing its brothers. The monster is graceful and intelligent, and a sadness settles over me as I keep firing.

  The beast squeals and thrashes back, lungs heaving in its chest, its trunk dark with blood as it crushes the pikemen attempting to drive it forward. The attackers scream as they fall, writhing like insects under the weight of the panicked elephants, staggered by the withering, ceaseless gunfire from the walls.

  The roaring chants and shouts of the attackers fade; and for a moment I pause, simply watching the chaos. The battle at the gate is engulfed in great undulating ribbons of powder smoke and showers of sparks that spray like meteors from flintlock muskets. Atop the walls, a few officers work their weapons with grim intensity, malnourished cheeks sunken and yellow beneath soiled white wigs, moving like animated corpses.

  The nawab’s
attack is breaking.

  A last elephant spins and flees, stamping bodies into the dirt. The behemoth’s small red eyes are bright with panic as it crashes through the reinforcing wave of sepoys, shattering the line. The barrage of musket fire from our walls becomes more sporadic as the men pick off individual soldiers below.

  Escalade ladders lay like bits of straw on the field, amid crumpled bodies.

  Seeing the vast carnage, I find that I cannot bear to lift my weapon again. Less than an hour has passed, yet the stinging heat of the morning is already rising along with the wailing buzz of insects. The alien screams of a last wounded elephant echo through empty city streets, mingling with the wailing of men who lay dying.

  A sergeant calls out orders over the morning cicadas, a comforting staccato rhythm urging us to save ammunition. No mercy shots. A final, timed volley breaks across a broken final line of attackers, sending the sepoys into full retreat.

  This is a massacre. Meaningless. One-sided.

  As I sit, staring at blood-soaked dirt without seeing, a small movement draws my notice. An enemy sepoy lies at the foot of my wall. He is praying, unarmed and with both legs crushed, having dragged himself here from the gate. Cheek gleaming with a sheen of sweat, his turban and black hair have uncurled behind him like spilled intestines. The mortally wounded man is alone, abandoned by his comrades to an agonizing death.

  Without thinking, I climb down. As I descend, I hear only my fingers gritting against the crumbling stucco and the far-off shouts of wounded men. My boots land on hard-packed soil, in the shade of the partially collapsed wall.

  The wounded man is before me.

  On his stomach, the soldier hears my approach and turns over onto his back, biting down a groan. Young and well muscled, he watches me calmly from above a thick black mustache. His eyes widen slightly as he takes in my height, his gaze lingering on the khanjali hanging at my belt. Only the rapid rise and fall of his chest reveals the pain he is suffering. Both his legs are twisted and trampled.

  “Chale jao, aadamakhor,” he pants, sticking his chin out, defiant.

  Go away, Man-eater.

  Once, pravda was clear to me. By obeying my emperor, all was well. But what was simple is becoming complex. I can see no evil inside this grievously wounded man, only honor. And though no clockwork flutters beneath his throat, I can see the inevitable forces that led him here, through no fault of his own, fating him to die in the shadow of this crumbling wall.

  I kneel and hold out my canteen to him.

  The soldier regards me suspiciously, tries to move his arm but is too weak. His eyes close for a long moment. When they open they are wet and angry.

  I push the canteen to his lips and give the dying man a last sip of water. As he drinks, it is as though I can feel the cool satisfaction of his quenched thirst. The mercy of the act has satisfied pravda just as well as vengeance ever did—justice from injustice, my adopted sovereign’s will be damned.

  A new terrain of right and wrong is emerging, dizzying my senses.

  Across the plain, I see the humped backs of fleeing war elephants and curled bodies of fallen men, the dust congealed with their blood. Fresh-cut pikes lay scattered across the main road. The sky is writhing with clouds of buzzing flies.

  I stand, steadying myself against the wall. This shift in perspective washes over me like vertigo.

  Raising my eyes, I see the British lads perched high, surveying the field with spyglasses. The boys are smiling, teeth filthy, faces covered in dust and soot. They are glad to be alive, proud of the slaughter they’ve inflicted. They see enemies and allies on the field of battle, but I can see only men.

  Some are alive. Some are dead.

  “Why do you do this?” I ask the dying man. “Are you crazy? Are you all crazy?”

  At my feet, the man closes his eyes and his breathing slows. His chest falls and does not rise again. His power supply has extinguished itself in a seeping red puddle in the dirt. I place the canteen on his chest and leave it there, stepping out of the shadow of the wall and into the harsh sunlight.

  For the king. For the glory of England. The cries of hollow-eyed young men have begun to ring false in my ears. I no longer quite understand their meaning.

  “Hey,” I hear a call from above. “Man-eater!”

  Craning my neck, hand falling to the hilt of my saber, I squint at the top of the wall. A small, round man stares down at me, a look of amusement on his face. His head is shaved, thin legs dangling over the side. A pair of ostentatiously embroidered golden sandals hang from his feet. In one hand, he holds a long, garishly carved tobacco pipe. Now, he nonchalantly goes about trying to light it.

  “They are crazy, Man-eater,” says the round man, sucking on the pipe. “All of humankind is crazy. I should have thought you’d already know by now!”

  29

  SEATTLE, PRESENT

  “So? Who is this?” I ask Batuo.

  The curved relic hangs in my fingers, its surface echoing the candlelight of chandeliers mounted high above.

  Batuo stares at the relic for a long moment, almost wistful. Finally, with visible effort, the old man tears his gaze away and lands it back on Peter, still unconscious. The tall man’s body has been repaired, his new skin baby smooth under clothing that’s been torn by shotgun pellets.

  “That anima belongs to a powerful ruler,” says Batuo quietly. “Supremely knowledgeable. And older than time out of mind.”

  Batuo looks back at me with clear, intense eyes. “You must understand that whoever holds that artifact is in great danger. Another avtomat seeks it. One who has also lived since before all reckoning and grown unfathomably strong.”

  “Talus,” I say.

  Batuo chuckles and shakes his head.

  “This one is the master of Talus, and of many others. Her names are manifold, almost meaningless in their variety over the ages, but we knew her first as Leizu…the Worm Mother.”

  “What does she want with this relic?” I ask.

  “In all of this great existence, across the rise and fall of civilizations…there is only one whom she fears,” says Batuo. “The one you keep over your heart.”

  If the blond monster in the motorcycle helmet is only a servant, then I definitely don’t want to meet his master. I rest a hand lightly on Peter’s shoulder. He feels warm, chest rising and falling, but his eyes are still closed.

  “We have to wake him up. He knows what to do.”

  “Peter’s anima…” Batuo trails off, taps his chest. “His relic, as you call it. Its power is nearly extinguished.”

  “Let’s recharge him, then,” I urge.

  With a wan smile, Batuo beckons me to follow. We walk below the curtain of disembodied arms and legs hanging from the catwalk. The fleshy limbs form a grotesque canopy over our heads, synthetic bones jutting from shoulders and hip joints. Each body part is labeled with a yellowed tag—its owner. Skin tones and musculature vary, and I recognize male and female limbs of various races and ages.

  How many of these creatures did there used to be?

  “All of this that you see is cosmetic,” calls Batuo, waving a hand. He runs his fingers across a row of dangling feet, leaving the legs swaying slightly. “We avtomat can change our skin, but not our souls. Each anima belongs to a unique vessel. Our bodies can evolve with new technology, but only slowly. Too much change and the form loses coherence. Over these past millennia we have become stronger and more humanlike, but the anima that we each carry is inviolate—ancient and beyond our understanding.”

  Stooping instinctively, I pass beneath the body parts and follow Batuo through a tight archway. We enter a study hemmed in by ornately carved wood-paneled walls. The room is lit by a coral chandelier hanging over a floor layered in thick antique rugs. Every wall is lined with books and artifacts.

  “You don’t know how you’re made?” I ask, incredulous. “But you’ve had a thousand years to study the science.”

  Batuo slips behind a massive walnut desk, its
legs carved into elephants that are rearing back to support the cluttered slab of wood. He props his elbows on top, the chair squeaking under his wide bottom.

  “Science? This way of thinking is a construct of the last few centuries. Since antiquity, men have known only various forms of magick. The aqueducts of Rome were considered a natural magick, for example, the water wheels powered by hidden angels.”

  Batuo laughs, continuing.

  “This thing you call science was our gift to you, and a recent one.”

  Wandering deeper into the room, I run my eyes over a gleaming multitude of artifacts that line the walls, marveling at the sheer age and quality of the swords, skulls, jewelry, paintings, busts, and countless strange curios.

  I pause at what I thought was a sculpture. Instead, I see it is a crude face stitched from leather, mounted on a mannequin’s head. The eyes and mouth are missing, but I can see the outlines of features. Beside it, three more faces are mounted similarly, each more lifelike than the last—ever more realistic versions of the chubby Indian man sitting behind the desk, his perfectly humanlike face dotted with moles.

  Batuo has been evolving a long, long time.

  “Someone made us, sometime,” he explains. “After countless centuries, through the ages of man, we lost the knowledge of who. In rare periods of enlightenment, some enterprising humans found our discarded bodies, repaired them, and replaced the anima de machina. But the longer we have lain dormant before such crude resurrection, the more our memories fade. And in this way, we have forgotten ourselves.”

  Now I recognize this alcove as a Renaissance-era Wunderkammer, a wonder room, once kept by emperors and naturalists, filled with antiquities and treasures and the uncategorizable wonders of the world.

  “After all this time,” Batuo continues, “we are unable to re-create the feats of our ancestors. We do not know exactly who made us or when, and, most important—we don’t know how. This is why so many avtomat are asleep in my catacombs. And it is why some others have chosen to hunt their own kind.”