Heart of Steel (25 page)

The rattle of the cargo lift joined the moans and gunshots. The crew dragged the rope ladder up halfway, shooting a path clear for the marines. They dropped it again as Bigor reached the airship. The four marines began climbing all at once, as if this weren't the first time they'd had to share a single ladder in a rush.

Yasmeen reached the deck. She leaned over the side, hauled Archimedes over. Chest heaving, laughing, Archimedes turned to look below. Jesus. The zombies were
still
coming out of the keep.

“Well—” He had to stop, catch his breath. “Now we know where they confined the infected.”

Yasmeen laughed. Her bright eyes met his, her smile brilliant. He watched it die as her gaze lit on something beyond him.

“Oh, fuck,” she said softly.

He looked around. Near the rope ladder, the marines were huddled over one of their men. Bigor had torn away Durand's sleeve. The bloody marks couldn't be anything but a bite.

The crew hushed.

Without turning his head, Bigor asked, “Mr. Fox, how long?”

A ball of lead settled in Archimedes' gut. “If he has nanoagents, a few days. If he doesn't, a few hours.”

Durand closed his eyes. Bigor bent his head toward the other man's, said something too low to hear. A moment later, he stood and faced Captain Guillouet. “Will you please clear the deck, sir? We would like to say our farewells.”

Though his expression looked suddenly weary, Guillouet's shoulders straightened. “I have to stand witness.”

“He's our brother, sir.”

“That's why I have to stand, marine.”

Bigor's face tightened, but he nodded.

Yasmeen tugged on Archimedes' hand. “Come.”

He followed her to the hatchway, where the deck crew was gathering, waiting their turns on the ladder. Softly, he said, “Should we say something to him before we go?”

“What can we say?” She slid down the ladder and waited for him below before starting along the passageway to their cabin. “He asked to have the deck cleared. That was his request. So we honor it.”

“And the captain?”

“Too many people try to hide their loved ones after a bite.” The weariness on her face matched the captain's. “Guillouet standing witness isn't personal, it isn't an insult. It simply says: The crew comes first.”

And her crew had also always come first, Archimedes knew. “You've done the same?”

“Too many times. And too many times, I've been the one pulling the trigger.” She stopped as a gunshot sounded above. Her eyes closed. After a long moment, she looked up at him. “If I'm ever bit, please do the same for me. Don't make me do it myself.”

“I will.” It was the most difficult promise he'd ever made. “I'd ask the same, but there's no question that you'll shoot me—even if I wasn't infected.”

A smile touched her mouth, but her eyes remained serious. “It might take more for me to shoot you than you think. I suppose that means I'm not as dangerous to you. Is that disappointing?”

Was it? He recalled the pounding of his heart as he'd shot her with the opium dart, the delicious fear that had accompanied him back to
Lady Corsair
, certain she'd try to kill him at any moment. That fear
had
gone, but it wasn't a loss: every moment with her was more thrilling, more fulfilling, even if she wasn't trying to shoot him.

And he had more fears now to replace it: fear for her life, fear that when this expedition was over and her vengeance satisfied, he'd never see her again. And though he knew her heart was steel, though he looked forward to the longing of an unrequited love, he also knew the fear that she'd never feel the same in return.

She might not kill him, but he was still on a path that didn't lack for danger. It lurked behind her every touch, her every smile, her every word. With each one, he fell a little more—but instead of hope, his shattered heart waited below.

“I'm not disappointed,” he said.

He was terrified.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, the airship's galley provided Hassan's table
with marginally better food and the luxury of wine—which, Yasmeen noted, Hassan didn't touch. Conversation was subdued. She and Archimedes barely mentioned the morning's adventure, though she knew if there'd been any other outcome with Durand, neither one of them could have resisted upstaging the other.

Instead, she refilled her wine and listened as Archimedes told Hassan of an island in Venice that had been used in the same way as the keep, then of another island on the Seine. He mentioned dates and names with no effort, no pausing to recall details—as if history were as familiar as his own family.

In the serial adventures, Archimedes Fox never studied. He never sought mysteries; they simply fell into his lap. But in truth, Archimedes Fox was a scholar with a gun, a grapnel, and a need to fling himself into danger.

That made the real man infinitely more fascinating.

Not to Hassan, however—or because he'd known the real man for longer. And though he was subtle, steering the discussion to Venice and Archimedes' recent journey aboard
Lady Corsair
, she could see that his route would take him to her. Archimedes must have seen it as well, and—perhaps protecting her from questions she might not want to answer—not-so-subtly turned the conversation back around. Amused, Yasmeen watched their back-and-forth until she sensed a hint of frustration in Archimedes' reply. Their maneuverings had been entertaining, but not worth hard feelings.

At a pause in their exchange, Yasmeen met Hassan's eyes and said, “I won't think it rude if you ask.”

The man colored slightly. Archimedes lifted his wine to her.

“Then tell us all, my wife.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but Hassan didn't waste any time. Shaking his head, he said, “Not all, please. I merely wondered if you were from the same house as Nasrin.”

Nasrin, the wild rose. “Temür Agha's guard?” she guessed.

Hassan nodded. Archimedes had gone utterly still, his gaze fixed on her face as if not to miss a word. Because she'd mentioned the guard, or because he was learning more about her, information that didn't come from stories or rumors?

The idiot. If he wanted to know, he only had to say so. She would tell him.

Not here, however. No, there was another story that she wanted to hear, and it wasn't her own. She needed a full picture of the man who might be responsible for the death of her crew, not rumors and stories. She wanted to hear it from a man who knew him.

“I knew of several
gan tsetseg
by that name,” she said, “but there are also many I don't know. I was raised in Constantinople.”

“It is unlikely you know her, then. Nasrin was from the Pun-jaab, but was raised by the house in Daidu.” Then, in a careful tone, “Constantinople?”

“Yes.” She held his gaze. “I escaped while Temür Agha razed the city.”

He gave a deep, resonating sigh. “You must have been young. That is why you were not altered.”

“Yes.” The mechanical flesh and weapons weren't grafted on until after they were fully grown. It had been near that time for Yasmeen—but this was also not what she wanted to hear, and she didn't care to be subtle when she steered. “Archimedes told me that I was wrong about Temür—that he hadn't been the one to burn the city.”

“No,” Archimedes jumped in immediately. “He did burn it. I only said he was a Horde rebel.”

“He was
destroying
the rebellion.”

“You are both correct,” Hassan said. His hand shook slightly as he reached for the teapot, but Yasmeen couldn't determine whether it was with emotion or age. He paused before refilling his cup, as if noticing that she'd finished her glass of wine. “Shall I pour some for you?”

“Is it from the New World?”

Humor brightened his face. “Yes.”

“No, thank you. Drinking nothing is better than that.”

“I must disagree; even this tea is better than nothing.” He grimaced slightly as he took a sip. “Though I wish I had thought to stock my own supply. Captain Guillouet does not trust any foods or drink that do not come from the Americas. He fears infection.”

So that was why nothing was fresh. Centuries before, the Horde had concealed the nanoagents in the tea and sugar they'd traded in Europe and northern Africa. By the time they activated their controlling signals, much of the population was infected and helpless to fight back, making their invasions as painless as slipping a greased finger into the barrel of a gun that didn't hold any bullets.

Setting his cup down, Hassan continued. “There are those in the empire who would not blame him for his fear. When word of the occupations in England and Africa reached Xanadu, it made many uneasy—as uneasy as news of the zombies had a century before. What if the creatures crossed the empire's walls and great rivers? What if the Great Khan set up towers to control his people instead of the barbarians? Few would speak out against Argon Khan, however, under whose rule the occupations were ordered—but it was then that the rebellion began to form.”

Yasmeen hadn't known that. She'd been taught that Argon Khan had been as wise as Munduhai Khatun, as generous as Toqta Khan. To learn differently didn't surprise her, however—every Khan was powerful enough to write his own history.

But it also meant there was only one way that Hassan had heard differently. “Temür Agha told you this?”

“Yes. Perhaps it is true; perhaps it is not. Perhaps it is only what he was told by others in the rebellion. But it is important to know that there was also
another
rebellion, though the roots of that go deeper, and was one that challenged the seat of the Great Khan.”

Yasmeen knew of this one—the heirs of Ögedei, the youngest son of Genghis Khan, could not have been more reviled in the histories. When the great general Batu, son of Genghis Khan's eldest son, had been named his grandfather's successor, Ögedei's supporters had called Batu's legitimacy into question, reminding all that Genghis Khan's wife had been raped in captivity before the birth of Batu's father. Though Batu had crushed the opposition, he allowed his uncle Ögedei to live, sending him to secure the peninsula ruled by the Goryeo emperors.

Ögedei's descendants did not forget the question of legitimacy, however—and the blame for many assassinations within the royal line were laid at their feet. Yasmeen didn't know if that were true, or if Ögedei's heirs were simply a convenient scapegoat.

“Twenty-five years ago,” Hassan said, “Kuyuk the Pretender began amassing an army in the White Mountains east of the Black Sea, claiming to be Ögedei's heir. The Horde's generals searched for him, but even though a generation had passed since the great plague, they had too few soldiers to be thorough, and for a decade Kuyuk remained well hidden—then the Great Khan sent Temür to flush him out. Kuyuk ran northwest, around the sea, then southeast.”

“On a route to Constantinople,” Yasmeen murmured.

“Even Temür doesn't know whether that was the Pretender's intention, or if it simply lay in his path as he returned east. His army must have been exhausted by the flight, low on supplies and starving—perhaps he only attacked the city to replenish his provisions. But Kuyuk claimed that he would prove to Xanadu his royal blood, a direct line from Genghis Khan, by sacking a city in the same way. Temür was not far behind him.”

The man paused, sipped his tea. Though he gave little indication of it, Yasmeen sensed that his thoughts were troubled, his emotions suppressed.

“Temür had long been embroiled in another battle, though it was one that took more care and diplomacy—to convince the Great Khan to strike down the towers in the occupied territories. But the territories are lucrative, so the Khan would not. Temür requested the governorship of the northern African territories, but the Khan wanted to keep him close. But the Pretender's sacking of Constantinople posed a real threat to him—not that he feared Kuyuk would march on Xanadu, but that the people's confidence in him would be further damaged, and support for the rebellion— the
true
rebellion—would grow. So the Khan made the promise that if Temür stopped the Pretender, he would have Morocco.”

“But he didn't just stop Kuyuk,” Yasmeen said. “Temür
obliterated
him, along with the city. There were still citizens there—citizens of the empire.”

“Yes,” Hassan said. Though he said it unflinchingly, a deep weariness seemed to settle over him. “He wanted to make certain that the Khan feared him enough never to go back on his promise. Then he sent Nasrin to destroy the Khan's stable.”

“What?”
Still trying to take in the implications of Temür's actions, trying to decide the sort of man they made, the shock of that statement sent her reeling. “Did she succeed?”

Hassan nodded. “Almost completely.”

“The stable?” Archimedes leaned forward, frowning. “For his ponies? I haven't heard this.”

“Mongols don't put their ponies in stables. It was a prison, a workhouse for the European mathematicians and philosophers that the Polo brothers and the fool Marco introduced to Toqta Khan.” Feeling light-headed, Yasmeen reached for her cigarillo case.
Damn it.
She clenched her fist, took a breath. “But they are all dead, of course, replaced by those from within the empire. They are called the Khan's magicians. But that word is wrong—there is no magic; it is only superstition. They are his inventors. The cleverest children are picked from the crèches and the villages, and brought to Xanadu—and of those, the cleverest are chosen for the stable.” A golden cage, much like the houses of the
gan tsetseng,
and those chosen were never allowed to leave. “The stable has been available to the royals,
only
the royals, for centuries. Their technologies are guarded like no other secret, though of course we
see
what they have created every day. But how does it work? So it is magic to many of those in the empire.”