Heart of Steel (29 page)

The machine quieted, instead. A panel opened in its belly. Guns aimed, they waited.

A young man tumbled out and fell to his knees beneath the mechanical beast, hands outspread as if to show he had no weapons. His face downturned, he was almost crying, Archimedes realized—and his mouth was moving. Over the rumble of the engine, he heard the apology in the Horde language: “I didn't know it was you,
gan tsetseg
, but thought one of the soulless had come. Forgive me, lady.”

Gan tsetseg
. A flower of steel—the same thing Yasmeen had called herself and Nasrin.

Yasmeen stood stiffly, gun still pointed. Archimedes holstered his.

“He says he's sorry, steel flower,” he told her in French. “He thought we were zombies.”

Yasmeen blinked. “I couldn't make it all out. His accent is strong.” She lowered her gun and spoke in Mongolian. “Stand up now.”

Her
accent was strong, more like Temür's than the common Horde rebels that Archimedes had met, but the young man immediately complied. About eighteen or twenty, with rounded face and teary brown eyes, he stood in long quilted tunic split up the middle and belted with a sash. Boots of leather and fur protected his feet.

Yasmeen holstered her weapon. “How many are in the fortress?”

“Only me and no one.”

“Where is no one, then?”

A name, Archimedes realized. Nergüi.

“In our chamber. She sleeps heavy with opium.”

“She?”

“My grandmother.”

Yasmeen nodded. “And you are?”

“Terbish.”
That one.

She smiled faintly. “Your family had bad luck come calling for you before, yes?”

Though his mouth didn't curve, Terbish's eyes crinkled at the corners. Both tears and fear vanished from his face. “Yes.”

She gestured to the horse, quietly rumbling behind him. “Did you build this?”

“Yes.”

“It's incredible. Will you let us look inside?”

His eyes widened, and he stepped back, arm extended. “Please, lady.”

 

 

Terbish and Nergüi had taken one of the chambers near
the foundry. To keep the heat from escaping, they'd covered the windows with thick wooden planks from the tables and the entrances with heavily woven curtains. Two pallets lay close to a hearth built from stone and steel, making an efficient oven. A gray-haired woman snored lightly on one.

Terbish bent to wake her. “It will be a few minutes before she rouses. Please, sit.”

Yasmeen glanced at the woven mats beside the pallets and sank down, crossing her legs. Archimedes crouched, and she had to smile. He wouldn't relax yet. She could move quickly enough it didn't worry her.

The older woman stirred. Not blissed on opium, Yasmeen saw, but probably drinking a medicine before she slept. The stiffness of her movements suggested arthritis. Nergüi's eyes widened, then she stilled when she saw Yasmeen's ears. Quick fear appeared, and then she was up, pushing Terbish off to collect food from their stores. She stoked the fire, and poured fermented milk from a horsehide bag hanging nearby.

Yasmeen accepted the small bowl. After the snow outside, the thick drink was pleasantly warm, slightly sweet and pungent. She passed the bowl to Archimedes.

“I didn't hear ponies,” she said. Aside from the terrifyingly huge mechanical one. “Do you keep them here?”

“Across the valley.” Nergüi settled onto her mat, crossing her legs as Yasmeen had. “We return to the outpost each week to replenish our supplies.”

“You don't live there?”

“We do. But what is there to do in the winter? There is nothing to harvest, everyone only sits and waits for something to happen. The soldiers are gone, so all of us that are left have only our own families to feed.”

And so it was with all of the outposts: the workers allowed outside the walls, but locked in by zombies and their duties. “The soldiers are gone? Where?”

“To Xanadu, to defend against the rebellion, though the news we receive from outside says there is no rebellion to crush.” Nergüi grinned and clicked her tongue, obviously not fooled by the official statements. “Perhaps they have flung the rebels all away.”

To the Horde outposts. Just as governing an outlying territory was a punishment, so too was this. With many soldiers about, the outposts effectively became a work prison for entire families. “And what will you do with no soldiers about?”

“Me? I only cook. The boy only builds.”

Ah. She was being careful with Yasmeen about—not a soldier, but uncertain why a
gan tsetseg
and Archimedes were here. Yasmeen gave the old woman a quick explanation, saying that they'd only come to collect some of the barbarians' equipment, before suspicion led her to ask:

“Did Terbish build his machine from the parts that were left here?”

“Yes.”

So they might not find much at all. But why the horse? If they were rebels, did they plan to use it? It did seem the sort of fanciful machine a young man would make. “And one day, will he ride his pony across the empire?”

“No, no.” Nergüi's smile bunched cheeks as round as Terbish's. “That is just to cross the valley.”

 

 

When the sun rose, Terbish showed them the courtyard.
Five airships could have been tethered comfortably within its walls, and it was taken up with a dark machine. Yasmeen stared up at it. Roughly shaped as if someone had chopped off the top of a mountain and placed it in the courtyard—but it was a mountain made of propellers and pistons, valves and pipes—too large to be anything but awe-inspiring. She couldn't make sense of its purpose. Propellers might have been for direction, but couldn't provide propulsion—not for something this massive.

“What is it?” Archimedes said, and Yasmeen was thankful she was not the only one who hadn't yet figured it out.

“A flying machine. Of course it is not finished. But in another five years, it will rise.”

Oh. How to say this without offending? Yasmeen settled for “It's very heavy.”

Terbish stared at her. Then a bright smile widened his mouth. “No. This is only the shape. Come.”

He raced around the machine.

Archimedes grinned and walked with her—neither one in such a hurry.

“This is a surprising find,” he said, and she knew he was not speaking of the machine, but Nergüi and Terbish.

“That is the very best kind.”

“Yes. We won't find much here. Nergüi says the fortress is almost picked clean.”

“Then we'll enjoy two days of food that doesn't crawl with worms.”

“Will they have enough?”

“Will you offend them by asking?” She lifted her brows. “Me neither. It sounds as if they replenish often, but we'll give them what we have in our packs, too.”

And try not to be embarrassed by the offering. The mare's milk alone had been richer in flavor and more satisfying than anything she'd had aboard
Ceres
. Still, Nergüi and Terbish might enjoy the novelty of barbarian food at its worst.

The young man waited for them near a small ledge jutting out from the machine, and hauled himself up. “Come inside!”

He led them to an opening of a large pipe. More tubes lined the interior. Bent over at the waist, she followed Terbish inside. The pipe narrowed until they were crawling across the metal. Feeling squeezed from the outside in, Yasmeen forced herself to keep following the young man, and when there was no more light, following the sound of him.

“I think God is angry with me,” Archimedes grumbled in French. “My face is all but buried in your delectable ass, and I can't see to enjoy a moment of it.”

Yasmeen laughed, then her palm encountered more metal—smooth, slightly warm. Unsettled by the unexpected texture, she yanked her hand back. Ahead, Terbish lit a lamp, and she found herself at the entrance to a small, spherical chamber, without enough room to stand. The walls were gray and looked softer than they felt.

Mechanical flesh.

Terbish ran his hand along the curving wall. “It has to grow, and it will cover all of the iron and steel like a skin, using what it needs from them and discarding the rest. It will be light”—he tilted his head, as if considering—“Light
er
. Much lighter. And it will be able to lift itself.”

Yasmeen had no idea if that were true. But how could he have this? The Khan's stable had been destroyed. She looked to Archimedes, who was also taking in the chamber with an astonished expression.

“Where did you find the mechanical flesh?”

“It was given to me.” He stroked the wall again, and Yasmeen thought that it responded—a slight flexing, like a muscle tensing beneath skin. “One summer when I was still a boy, a man came through the pass. He met with my mother, who was alive, and grandmother while they worked in the valley. He spent the night in the fortress, and my mother, grandmother, and I avoided the soldiers that evening and brought food to him, and we ate with him. They knew he was a magician, and asked him to take me on his journey, so that I could leave this place. They brought a toy that I had built, to prove that I was clever enough to join him—but the magician said he did not know where the road would take him, and to wait, and to build a machine made of my changing dreams, and he would return and help me leave.”

Obviously not recognizing this for a well-told story, and a family favorite at that, Archimedes interrupted the young man's telling of it. “How did they know he was a magician?”

“Because he was made from this. Very big, all gray, no hair.”

Yasmeen laughed in surprise, and looked to Archimedes. He wore an expression of disbelief. “The Blacksmith?”

She couldn't be certain, but the magician's description resembled his. The Blacksmith of London was the only man she'd ever known made almost entirely out of mechanical flesh.

Terbish shook his head. “I don't know that name. He said he was also Nergüi. He left, and I began to make the biggest, grandest machine that I could think of. My first was the pony, as strong as any that Genghis Khan used to ride across the steppes. Then my grandmother pointed to the mountain peaks, so near to the Eternal Sky, and I began to build that, instead. A year ago, the magician returned. He gave to me a piece of mechanical flesh no bigger than this”—he held his hands cupped together—“and told me to put it in the heart of my machine, and she would grow. And she has.”

Astonishing. Yasmeen could not stop grinning, imagining it. “And what will you do with your flying machine?”

“I will take my grandmother, and we will either travel everywhere in the world or return and lead the rebellion. Perhaps both.”

“The Blacksmith didn't tell you what to do with it?”

“He said it was mine. He said it was for kindness.” Terbish stroked the metal again. “And that I only have to keep my heart big enough to match it.”

Chapter Twelve

After crawling out into the sunlight and dropping into the
courtyard's deep snow, Archimedes turned to her. “Are you as certain as I am that this thing will eventually fly?”

“I don't know.” But he could see that she did. She was certain it would.

“I feel like I should be terrified. Can you imagine this in the sky?” He shook his head. “But I'm . . .”

“Overwhelmed.”

“Yes.”

“It's a good story. Let's hope Terbish doesn't grow up to be a dictator.”

He looked to her. “And when will you tell me your story, steel flower?”

“Tonight. It isn't something to tell by sunlight, but with firelight and food and wine . . . or mare's milk.” She smiled. “Should we begin our search? Perhaps we will find something.”

They didn't, but it was still incredible to walk through the fortress, to feel the size and strength of it. With the soldiers gone from the outpost, the worry of discovery was all but gone. That afternoon, he and Yasmeen added their supplies to the food stores, and though Nergüi looked doubtful as she sniffed the dried meats, she cooked a thick stew from it, made hearty with roots and onions and seasoned with herbs. With more fermented mare's milk, he finished the day pleasantly full and warm. Terbish brought out an opium pipe, and for long, quiet moments, Yasmeen shared it with Archimedes. When she returned the pipe, she looked as fully relaxed as he felt, sitting cross-legged on the bedroll with Archimedes stretched out behind her, up on his elbow and his knee cocked, giving light support to her back. Terbish lay similarly stretched out on his pallet, and the older woman sat on her mat, taking her draught.

Archimedes wondered, “Do you have nanoagents, Nergüi?”

She gave an amused cackle. “So that the Great Khan might control us, too?”

“Rebels have much in common with the New World,” Yasmeen said in French. “But I would never tell either of them that.”

Archimedes laughed, and watched as she seemed to settle in without moving much at all—just a sigh, and a slight pressure against his leg as she rested more fully against him. “So what sort of story are you telling us?”

“A tragic one,” she said. “It began with love, as tragedies always do.”

“If that is your opinion, no wonder your heart is of steel.”

A sharp
shht!
from Nergüi. Archimedes stifled his laugh. It had been some time since he'd been hushed, but he settled in, too, watching Yasmeen's face as she began.

“There was a warrior queen, clever and strong, who held together the empire through turbulent times. Manduhai the Wise, wife to the Khan and Khatun herself after he died of long sickness, she ruled and all of the empire loved her, but for the heirs of Ögedei, who wanted to tear her throne away.”