Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables (4 page)

But only for a moment. He felt Gisel stepping close beside him, then saw one of her rag-wrapped clogs kick the dowager’s face, hard enough to crack bone and snap its lifeless gaze to one side.

“Don’t—” He wrapped his arms around her again, pulling her away as she burst into sobbing tears. “It’s all right. It is, it is…”

Even more terrible things were happening inside the grand
ballroom. As he led Gisel away, he could hear vengeful shouts and laughter, the creak of metal wedged asunder, bludgeons of stick and fist upon withered flesh.

In the center of the city’s widest street, he held her close to himself. They both looked far beyond the skeletal trees at either side, toward the ancient Roman walls. The half-naked stokers were lifting the beams onto their blackened shoulders, unbarring the gates tall as clock towers. Massive iron hinges groaned as the gates slowly parted, the stokers gripping and pulling the timbers’ edges toward themselves.

He closed his eyes and pressed his face to the snow that had traced across Gisel’s hair. Soldiers who wore no medals, with worn boots of rough, unpolished leather, and hard-faced commissars with machine pistols rather than swords at their belts, astride horses lean and bony-ribbed from their long trek across the steppes—they would enter unopposed now, gazing around at all that had fallen so easily into their hands.

He held her even tighter, her heart in time with his.

Things would be different now.

“I
’m going up,” Vasyl said.

Petro caught his arm with strong fingers. “Don’t be a fool! The penalty—”

“I know the penalty.” Vasyl shook himself free of his friend’s grip and climbed the stairs in chilly autumn air. A chattering crowd in Kiev’s Khreshchatyk Square hushed in stages as they realized that someone was taking up the challenge. Vasyl’s heart beat faster with every step and his stomach felt tight as sheet metal. At the top of the wooden steps on the wide platform sat Vyktor Ivanovych, the mayor of Kiev, dressed in all his red velvet finery. The heavy gold chain beneath his beard indicated his office, and he occupied an elaborately carved chair. Behind him stood a mechanical man in gold livery. It carried a tray of food and a crystal goblet of wine. Vasyl quavered at the intimidating display, so fine compared to his simple work boots and oil-stained shirt. Even his tinker’s pack and cap had oil stains on them. He quickly snatched off the latter, revealing deep red hair.

Beside the mayor, on a much smaller chair, sat Hanna
Vyktorevna, the mayor’s daughter. Her golden hair, azure eyes, and graceful figure made Vasyl think of an autumn sunrise, both beautiful and untouchable. She was nineteen now, time for her to marry. Ivanovych wanted Hanna to marry a prince, but no princes called on the daughter of a mayor.

As time passed, it became more and more embarrassing that Hanna remained single, and Ivanovych decided that if his daughter couldn’t marry a prince, she must at least have a husband who proved himself by fulfilling a task set by the mayor himself, a task sure to be all but impossible. As a result, this was the seventh Sunday the mayor had put his daughter on display, and no one had dared approached the platform.

No one until now.

Ivanovych looked Vasyl up and down. “Who are you?”

“My name—” Vasyl’s voice broke. He coughed and tried again. “My name is Vasyl Mykhailovych, and I wish to marry your daughter.”

The crowd broke into unexpected applause. Vasyl caught a glimpse of Petro standing among them. His lifelong friend’s face was grim. Petro was a Tatar, from the Crimea, which meant he had dark hair and a swarthy complexion. Years of working as a blacksmith had given him a powerful build, and his kind face caught the attention of any number of women, but he had shown no interest in any of them since the death of his wife nine years ago. At the moment his brown eyes were hard with disapproval, and Vasyl almost left the platform right then.

The applause died down and the mayor held out his hand. “Wine,” he said, and his mechanical handed him the crystal goblet with precise movements. “Your occupation, Mykailovych?”

Vasyl shifted the little pack of tools on his back. “I am a simple tinker, sir.”

Hanna glanced at him, then looked away, her face carefully impassive. The mayor pointed a beringed finger and replied, “Does
that
wish to marry her as well?”

Coming up the stairs was a brass machine. It was a skinny, pointed staff with two long arms that ended in vaguely human
hands. The bottom of the staff flared out wide like a bell with wheels on the bottom. To navigate the stairs, it hitched itself upward with its arms, one step at a time, laboring with the effort but refusing to give up. Steam puffed from several seams.

“Broom!” Vasyl said. “You didn’t have to come up here.”

The unclear command caught Broom off guard. He hesitated at the top of the steps and tipped dangerously backward.

“Wait!” Vasyl called. “Come here, Broom.”

Broom scrabbled a moment, regained his balance, and scuttled over to Vasyl, where he waited with folded hands. The crowd laughed.

“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.

“C
an 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?”