The Clockwork Dynasty

by Daniel H. Wilson

  “Why can’t we use him?” I ask, motioning to the demolished body of Talus.

  The monk shakes his head. “Talus’s heart is broken, his power is gone.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” I say, desperation in my voice. “There has to be another way.”

  “This is not your decision,” he says. “We each act according to our Word and I am serving mine, as I have since the first days.”

  Batuo’s body is wracked with a shiver. Squeezing his eyes closed, he grits his teeth and shakes his head as if to clear it.

  “You’ll need to open Peter,” he says.

  “Open Peter?” I repeat, idiotically, struggling to make sense of his words.

  Batuo lies down on his back, parallel to Peter on the operating table. I watch his translucent lungs inflate under carbon fiber ribs. When he speaks again, his voice is a whisper.

  “There is a seam on his chest,” he says.

  I can smell something burning, hear the static discharge of electricity. I drop the leather bundle on the table beside Peter. As I unroll it, strange tools appear, some modern and familiar, some others carved out of stone.

  Oh my god, I’m thinking. What am I doing?

  Leaning over, I unbutton Peter’s shirt and spread it open. I tentatively put my palms flat against his bare chest. The flesh is warm and muscular under my fingers. He has a light smattering of freckles over his upper chest, a little hair. I trace my fingertips across his shoulders, over his collarbones, and along his sternum.

  A small ridge reveals itself to my fingers.

  I pinch two handfuls of flesh over the pectoral muscles. Elbows pointed to the walls, I lean in and pull. Some part of me is wincing at the pain this would cause a person. I’m not pulling as hard as I can, empathizing with this manlike object.

  He’s a machine, June. Not a man.

  I lean over farther, pulling harder, my hair cascading over Peter’s face. Grunting, elbows akimbo, I tug until the flesh of his chest suddenly gives, parting smoothly, a straight seam opening wide from his navel to his throat.

  “Oh, wow,” I breathe.

  The synthetic skin gapes open, revealing a light golden spiderweb of hard fiber ribs. Roughly in the shape of a rib cage and sternum, the protective webbing encloses an armored metal sphere. A blue light pulses inside the metal cage.

  Letting my eyes travel up his chest to his face, I see Peter’s head is pushed to the side, eyes closed, still unconscious. Arcs of electricity crackle over the surface of his skin, causing random muscle twitches.

  “Among my tools, you will see a bi disk,” says Batuo. “Align it correctly and power will transfer from one anima to another. Use caution—”

  Eyes squeezing shut, Batuo’s body is wracked with another spasm. Kneeling, I take his hand in mine without thinking, squeezing it, trying to comfort him. Feeling the pressure, he opens his eyes. Lips shaking, he manages to speak:

  “Wake me, June. When you and the man-eater succeed. The old one you carry around your neck…he knows. Be wary of him, but learn his secrets—even if he refuses to teach.”

  Head falling back, Batuo’s face goes slack. After a few seconds, his eyes aren’t seeing anymore. His chest is exposed, light streaming from between the alien slats of his rib cage.

  “Wait,” I say. “I don’t know how. I’m not ready.”

  But the monk doesn’t respond. He is gone.

  My soul.

  Batuo’s sternum is similar to Peter’s, but made of a slightly different material. Not as much effort has gone into making a cage to protect the relic inside. Every avtomat must be custom built. Each of them has been upgrading him or herself for centuries, using whatever technology is on hand. Batuo has been using parts from this cathedral lab, and he has rebuilt himself more subtly than Peter.

  “Sorry, Batuo,” I murmur.

  With a solid couple of punches I’m able to crack the brittle carbon fiber ribs covering his chest. Reaching in, I snap them off and peel them out, tossing them on the ground. Finally, nestled deep inside his chest, I see what I’m looking for.

  A relic, shaped like an arc, sitting in a cradle that seems to be made of translucent ceramic, faded Chinese markings on it.

  This is the anima that lies at the heart of every avtomat. It’s the mind and the memory and the power. Batuo’s is inscribed with a word in the old language, different from the symbol imprinted on the one I carry. Using both hands, I lift the relic from his ruined chest, the weight of it oddly familiar to me.

  Laying Batuo’s relic on the table, I glance at the tool roll.

  The bi that he spoke of is a thin disk, carved out of jade and etched with intricate symbols. It is exactly the size of two crescent relics. Turning it in my fingers, I see bumps tracing the outer edge that align with indentations on Batuo’s relic.

  I’m starting to get an idea of how to proceed.

  I run my fingers inside Peter’s chest, feeling for a release button. Nothing. Eyes closed, breathing steady, I push and prod until my fingers settle into a couple indentations. Squeezing with all my might, I clench my fingers.

  Snap.

  Peter’s armored sternum opens, revealing a bare, blue-glowing relic cradled deep in his chest cavity. The symbol staring up at me is the Word that Peter follows. Studying it, I wonder what it means—what single word could possibly guide his entire life?

  “Here we go, Peter,” I mutter.

  I place the bi disk into his chest, over his relic, rotating it until I feel it align. Then I pick up Batuo’s relic and turn it over in my fingers. Lowering it inside, I stop when I feel a click. A long moment passes, and nothing happens.

  I exhale in a burst.

  “Damn—”

  Turning my wrist back and forth, I search for some kind of lock or symmetry. I’m alone in this baroque laboratory, surrounded by broken machines. Someone or something is out there, hunting me. And unless this works, I’m on my own.

  My job is to make these artifacts work. It’s what I do.

  “Come on,” I say. “Come on!”

  Elbows on Peter’s chest, I collapse and let my face land in the warm place between his neck and shoulder.

  “Listen to me, Peter,” I say into his ear. “It’s time to wake up.”

  36

  LONDON, 1758

  I have met someone, Elena said. Someone like us.

  The meaning of her words unfolds in my mind. A darkness sweeps over my vision and fear tightens like a knot between my shoulder blades.

  Met someone.

  I stride after her, but Elena has already disappeared into this mansion she haunts, scurrying off into abandoned corridors. The rooms are square and tall, lined with gaudy wallpaper, the elaborately painted ceilings encircled with gold-leafed molding. Somewhere, Elena’s shoes tap over hardwoods.

  “Elena!” I shout, reaching the limits of the mechanism in my chest, vibrating the walls. My boots hit the floor like steam engine pistons as I methodically search each room. The sun is low now, its reddish light sending long shadows over moldering rugs. I rake my fingers across a wall, tearing away rain-soaked wallpaper like a layer of blistered skin.

  Stop this, some part of me is saying. She has done no harm.

  But she has allowed a stranger into our refuge while I was absent. She could have asked me to return, told me how she felt. For so long she and I were everything to each other, and now she has betrayed our bond.

  Repeating her name, I stalk mindlessly through empty hallways.

  Finally, I kick open a French door to the paved garden outside. It sprays glass and one narrow door flies off its hinges. As I shout her name a final time, something breaks inside my chest. Elena’s name comes out in a hoarse rattle, desperate and dying in my ears, pathetic.

  And I see the stranger.

  In the garden pathways, she stands framed by wild trees, half swallowed by the gathering evening mist. I bite my lower lip, seeing her arm wrapped protectively around Elena’s shoulder. The girl’s head is leaning
against the woman’s hip in a familiar way, sending my teeth deeper into my lip.

  My hands curl into fists like round shot.

  In a simple gray riding dress and boots, the woman makes for an absurdly tall, melancholy figure among the wet foliage. Her long blond hair is twisted into a circular braid, worn like a crown. At her hip, the pommel of a saber winks, the scabbard hidden in the folds of her skirt.

  Even from here, I can detect the telltale signs of avtomat. Her movements are slightly stiff, with a hard strength beneath. The skin of her face is powdered in the fashion of a lady, but from the contours of her high cheekbones I can trace with my eyes where I would find the stitching should I run my fingertips beneath her jawline. Her eyes are large and bright and watchful in the unique way I have seen in Elena and in the mirror.

  “Who are you, stranger?” I call, my voice low and broken.

  As I approach, her expression hardens, eerily similar to Elena’s on this foggy late afternoon in the depths of our overgrown yard.

  “I am Hypatia of Alexandria,” she calls. “A philosopher and explorer. I understand you are a soldier of fortune?”

  Fists tightening, I advance.

  “I no longer fight for a human sovereign.”

  “Indeed not,” she says, her English accent perfect. “It would be senseless.”

  “Peter,” warns Elena.

  As I draw within striking range, Hypatia steps neatly away from my sister. One hand goes lightly to the pommel of her saber. Chin rising, she addresses me again without flinching.

  “My Word is virtue,” she says, white-gloved hand steady at her hip. “What’s yours?”

  I lower my fists. The stranger is standing her ground, armed and capable. Elena stands a little way off, watching us both sullenly.

  “It is my own,” I respond.

  With her fine dress and features, I can see she is a lady. The clenched fists hanging at my waist begin to embarrass me. I force myself to unclench them and to speak without shouting.

  “Tell me what business draws you to my home.”

  “Home?” asks Hypatia. “Hardly. I suspect your true home is far away. Both in miles and millennia.”

  Seeing my reaction, Hypatia nods. “You know this much about yourself, at least. We are all of us much older than we know.”

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “A cup of tea,” interrupts Elena. “And a few minutes’ discussion.”

  With a curt nod to Elena, I turn and trudge through the garden toward the freezing confines of the manor. In the guest quarters, I find a dust-coated mirror and grooming station. I trim the tiny, near invisible stray threads emerging from the corners of my face, using a pair of mustache scissors. With dabs of powder, I strike the faded ash from my lips and add a healthy skin tone to my cheeks.

  No one on this estate draws true breath, but these affectations are habit, a matter of survival for we who wish to live among humans. And the decorum puts a coat of civilization over an encounter that may well turn barbaric.

  Finished, I pause and consider my reflection. Doubt and shame are rising in my throat. I have never felt this alone. Even abroad, I believed Elena was waiting for me; that we would have a life together as brother and sister. All the while an interloper was here, her presence making mine obsolete.

  She says her Word is virtue.

  Goodness, chastity. This avtomat who has insinuated herself here, Hypatia, could possibly be lying. She could be anything, even the vanguard of an attack. Batuo warned me of a larger war. But I cannot act until I know her true intentions.

  In full military uniform, saber hanging from my hip, I leave the guest quarters resolving to face her in the English way—as a gentleman.

  The parlor, unlike the rest of the estate, is well preserved. Elena has outfitted the place in splendid shades of ivory and gold. Crystal sconces flicker brightly with candles as the gray sunlight fades into the folds of drapes. Books are piled to the girl’s height in all corners of the room. I am puzzled to see an array of mirrors and clock-making tools on an out-of-place vanity table, until I realize Elena—with her relentless logicka—has been taking herself apart, studying the pieces and putting them back together.

  Hypatia is crouching before the ornate fireplace, her back to me, starting a small flame over a few sticks of wood. On a round mahogany table nearby, Elena has arranged a complex tea set, the numerous pieces laid out like a puzzle.

  “I do not know why you trouble with a fire,” I say. “Its flames will not warm the likes of us.”

  Hypatia looks over her shoulder, smiling up at me.

  “This flame will not warm our bodies,” she says. “But the heat may warm our souls, and its light may show us the way forward. A well-tended fire and pot of tea are the keystones of a civilized world, after all.”

  She rises, fire flickering at her feet, and continues: “Civilization being, of course, a human invention. A miraculous outcome for a rather wretched species. Miraculous, and yet, if you ask me, civilization is the destiny of any group of people larger than two.”

  I sit at the table and Elena joins me on my right. Hypatia dusts her palms off on her skirt. Fire at her back, she joins us.

  “Allow me,” Elena says to Hypatia with a sickening familiarity. She pours three cups of tea. I am silent.

  We sip our tea in the slowly warming room; the parlor a lone beacon of warmth and light in an otherwise empty, destroyed mansion. The liquid will soon evaporate from our false organs, another part of the illusion of life that we perpetuate. Together, we are a clockwork menagerie, three lanterns left burning on a foggy moor.

  Elena glances at Hypatia, then turns to speak to me.

  “On the day we arrived, Peter, you and I both saw a red eye. Do you remember? We chose to ignore it, to be safe. But I never forgot. When I stumbled upon the symbol again—”

  “You went into the city, alone?” I ask, incredulous.

  “It was in a book that I procured from the Far East, purchased in a lot from a disgraced magician. Supposedly, the fellow had traveled the width and breadth of Asia six hundred years ago. Many such troves find their way to London, especially since my arrival.”

  Hypatia and Elena share a knowing look.

  “In any case, I deciphered the symbol,” continues Elena. “An eye with a square pupil. The eye meant danger. And the square represented human beings and their cities. It was a warning, you see, written for avtomat and in our own language.”

  “And how do you know it’s our language?” I ask.

  Elena taps her chest.

  “The symbols are the same as the ones written upon our hearts.”

  Elena drops her gaze to her hands, delicate fingers wrapped around a bone-white teacup.

  “I knew then there were friendly avtomat, and I set out to find them. You gave me the idea of how, Peter. Reading of your exploits, I saw how we so easily exceed human capability that our common deeds become legend. How many monarchs, heroes of battle, great philosophers…how many were like us?

  “In the summer, I began to invite the greatest geniuses of humankind to visit the estate. I paid whatever price to attract people who were too smart, too prolific. All the living legends I met were human beings. But one man crumbled under the questioning of a rather precocious little girl. He was a great mathematician…and a fraud. Once I determined who his true collaborator was, it was only a matter of reaching out.”

  Elena glances at Hypatia.

  The writing desk is just over her shoulder, pushed against the wall and buried under sheathes of paper. Now I understand why this lone room has been preserved, though the rest of our estate lies in near ruin.

  “You are very good with writing a letter, aren’t you darling?” I ask.

  Elena smiles across the table at me, her teacup balanced before her lips, eyes bright.

  “And so you joined her?” I ask Hypatia.

  “We make a good team,” she says. “Your sister is truly brilliant, Peter.”

  “
And she is in danger, thanks to you. Tales of phantoms and sprites also often lead to one of our kind. My coachman seemed to believe the ghost of an orphaned little girl haunted these hallways, the dulcet tones of her harpsichord ringing out in the ruins, fey music performed for the wild beasts of the wood.”

  Elena bows her head in embarrassment.

  “Not so far from the truth,” says Hypatia, lip twitching in a small smile.

  “And what revelation did Hypatia bring you, Elena?” I ask. “What essential message did she carry that you would risk your life so recklessly?”

  Elena is silent for a long moment, regarding me coldly.

  “To bring you your heart’s desire, Peter,” Hypatia says. “Elena stayed here on this estate out of true devotion to you. She risked everything, setting her mind to finding the one thing that could make you happy. And she convinced me to retrieve it. Yet all you seem to offer her in return is anger…and neglect.”

  Elena puts a hand on Hypatia’s forearm. The woman visibly reins in her emotions, blue eyes shining. In the simple gesture I can see years of companionship. Hypatia considers me, speaking slowly now, choosing her words.

  “Peter…we are a race of survivors. We live, and then forgetting—we live yet again. Sometimes, the consequences of the past follow us across many lives.”

  From a satchel, Hypatia produces a golden handkerchief wrapped around something heavy and small. She places the item on the table, the silk softening the contours of the object.

  This hidden thing exudes a familiarity I cannot place. The shape of it draws my eye. It calls to me silently, bids me to lift it. To protect it. My hands extend toward the silk almost of their own accord, and I force them back into my lap, clasping my fingers together to keep them in place.

  “You know what this is. You can sense it,” says Hypatia, watching my face closely. “Indeed, it is yours, and we have brought it back to you.”

  “No,” I say. “Elena is my only responsibility. My purpose is to protect my sister.”