Of Machines & Magics (25 page)

“There,” Calistrope pointed. “The far end.”

“Why there? There are several portals along the wall over there.”

“Because… I don’t know. Perhaps I saw it in the dream I had.”

“When you fell?”

Rather more dubiously than before, they crossed the track ways.

“Ah! Look at these machines Calistrope. Machines aping life.”

Ponderos stopped before a cluster of small hand sized machines on the ground. They did indeed resemble insects with dull grey carapaces and a variety of antennae and jointed limbs.

“And there,” said Roli, pointing, “are two real insects among them.

“So there are.”

And as they recognized the real among the sham so, it seemed, did the machines. Two of the mechanical contrivances turned on the insects and touched their antennae to the insects’ heads, there was a bright spark of power and the two impostors were dead; blackened husks.

“They’re dead, Calistrope. Killed by machineries,” Ponderos evidently found the concept distasteful. “Quickly. Let us leave this place.” Which was easier to say than to do; the far end was several furlongs away.

They continued on but as they approached the far wall, it became clear that it was not what it appeared. It was, in fact, an archway, the lower edge, a half-ellipse as long as the hall was wide. Like the roof above, the lower surface was pocked with cavities left by the fallen masonry which littered the floor.

At the far side of the arch was a drop to a lower level. A gap to one side of the chest high barrier gave onto a spectacular stairway which curved down to the city at its foot.

The City of Schune.

Breathtaking.

Even from this height, a hundred ells, it was obvious the city was a mixture of architectural styles: the tall, needle shaped towers of a millennium past; the crystalline Fortunus vogues; circular fora from the Paddacene; even genuine stone and timber buildings copied from prehistory. Yet, despite the amalgamation, it worked, blended. Placement had been careful so each variation complemented another. Streets radiated from a paved area at the foot of the steps, intersecting with other streets spreading from small parks at opposite corners of a triangle. Streams ran haphazard courses across the city; linking, splitting: a tracery of silver waters crossed by filigree bridges and stepping stones.

“Beautiful,” said Calistrope. “What a simply lovely place.”

“Dead,” said Roli. “Empty.”

“There are lights,” Ponderos pointed out.

“But no movement.”

They descended and as they did so, so the true vastness of this new space became apparent. Beyond the archway, the wall went upward—so far that it was not possible to guess how high. The ground area was not as great as it seemed to begin with, the city was not that large but the surrounding walls curved protectively round it without quite meeting on the far side.

“Are those stars?” Calistrope pointed to the hard points of light in the darkness.

“It is not possible,” Ponderos objected. “We are far too high to be open to the sky—we couldn’t breathe.”

“If that’s a simulacrum, it’s tremendous. It would have to be a hundred chains across but I suppose a window as large as that would be almost as formidable.”

“And as high,” said Roli. “But look at that.”

What Roli was looking at was a single, slender, shining curve. It sprang from a domed building at the center of the city and leapt up to the roof which it pierced and passed beyond.

Calistrope shook his head. “At least it gives us something to aim for. Whatever it is.”

They completed the descent to the plaza at the foot of the steps and chose a street which seemed to take them towards the central area. The three passed by shops and eating houses, dwellings and meeting halls; all of them were brightly lit, all of them empty. Beneath their feet, the pavement was a creamy white stone with a myriad crystals embedded in the surface.

“It feels,” Calistrope said, “as though everyone was here just a minute ago, as though every single person just left.”

“Hmm, yes. And every one of them expected back in a moment of two,” Ponderos looked from side to side. “Do you suppose we are being watched?” his stomach rumbled. “And I’m hungry.”

Calistrope asked in return, “Watched by whom? Schune is kept alight and warm by mechanisms, like those we met in the great hall up there. They sweep away the dust and no doubt, they repair the buildings when time wears them out.”

“Then that is what is watching us,” Roli said. “Mechanisms. Machines with beady glass eyes and long metal fingers,” he shivered.

The domed building they were making for was nearer now but the streets which surrounded it were annular, leading nowhere. Narrow paths led from street to circular street and these were blocked by further walls at random intervals. A maze. Was it purpose or fancy that had made it?

“I’m hungry,” Ponderos complained. “Have I mentioned it before?”

“Indeed you have. Have you looked in the streams we have crossed? Fish, Ponderos.”

Unbidden, Roli ran to the nearest bridge, a high arched affair with delicate scrollwork hand carved from old stone. “Yes, yes. There are fish down here. Plump, every one a good meal.”

“Why do I always overlook the obvious, Calistrope?”

“Hunger drives away reason, my friend.”

But when they tried to catch the fish, they found them to be contrivances, simulacra made of wires and diaphanous films. Ponderos’ hunger remained unsatisfied.

The maze took seven hours to solve but at last they stood before Schune’s domed City Hall. Between the pillars were two great doors of a dull brown metal which gleamed like oiled silk. A great hoop of the same metal hung at the center of each door panel.

They tried the doors, they were locked solidly. The circular handles would not turn and not even Calistrope’s recently acquired facility with door locks could open them.

“Hmm,” said Roli and lifted one of the circular handles which hinged up and down easily enough. He dropped it, banging it with a great brazen clang that echoed back and forth between the buildings.

Slowly, the door swung inwards until it was wide open.

“More thievery?” asked Ponderos.

“Hardly. No thief would announce his presence with a door knocker.”

“Unless he were a very clever thief.”

“In that case, I’m certain you’re right.”

Light flooded out of the opening, bathing the steps in brightness. Inside was a circular room with a coiled staircase reaching up into the ceiling.

“I don’t like the look of this, at all,” said Calistrope.

“What is wrong,” Ponderos looked around the deserted room. “An ambush?”

“Steps. How many steps do you suppose there are between here and the roof above the city? It’s a very long way to climb. But it’s the only obvious place to go, you don’t find a control room in an empty city.”

“Do you find them at the tops of mountains?”

Calistrope shrugged. “I am willing to listen to arguments,” Calistrope answered. “Reasonable arguments.”

The steps took them to the dome above the building. A glass cage stood there at the base of a single gleaming bar as thick as a man’s wrist. The bar sprang upward, disappearing into a circular tube which in turn, vaulted to the cavern roof high above.

There
was
only one thing to do. They entered the cage and waited. An alarm sounded, a high note which fell in pitch over the course of five seconds and then stopped. The cage moved, lifting them gently through the building’s roof and up into a transparent cylinder. Gentle pressure against their feet indicated acceleration which cut off as they approached the cavern roof. Progress slowed until the elevator crawled up to and through the vaulted ceiling.

When the capsule came to rest, they stepped into a small lobby, a narrow closed door was the only other exit from the claustrophobic little room. It was grey and a circle of darker grey color was marked at each side of the panel.

Without thinking about it, Calistrope touched the nearer of the two circles. The door panel vanished. Within was a ramp of ribbed, grey material and when all had entered and begun to walk upwards, the surface beneath their feet began to gradually move upward too. So smoothly did it start and accelerate that none of them were initially aware of the motion. When they did realize, however, it was just one more marvel among the many, no one saw fit to remark on it.

The floor leveled out but continued to take them along what was now a long hallway with walls covered in tapestry works, rugs, fur pelts, artistic designs and paintings. The ceiling, several ells above their heads, was a curved, barrel vaulted section built from interlocking blocks of polished granites. Sometimes black and white, sometimes pink or green, it reflected a million glittering points of light from the crystalline lamps which clung to the ceiling every few paces. The lights were activated in turn as they moved along so that before and behind them all was swathed in darkness;
onward
was an unknown quantity.

“You know, my friends,” Ponderos’ voice was ruminative. “I’m hungry.”

“You are always hungry, Ponderos.”

“I’m tired,” Roli said. “Did your dream tell what we might expect, Calistrope?”

“And you are always tired. No, what lies ahead is a mystery.

They were whisked on their way for what seemed a long time before they sensed that the pace was slowing. A minute later, they were walking. A division of the way ahead appeared, the corridor divided into two—although the right hand passage was blocked by closed doors across its width.

The barrier drew them—perverse curiosity. It was a pair of double doors similar to those they had met before. Calistrope extended his hand to one of the lighter grey circles in order to deactivate them. Nothing happened. Calistrope tried the circle on the other side, again nothing. Puzzled, Ponderos and Roli tried with similar lack of success.

“Well,” Calistrope looked at the doors and tapped a front tooth. “The other way then.”

They turned about and walked in the other direction. As before, a band of illumination stayed with them until they reached a second set of doors. With a certain lack of expectancy, Calistrope touched a light grey circle.

The door panels vanished. Before them extended a brightly lit hall which was so vast that distances could not be easily reckoned, so wide and so long that the walls were lost in haze. Above, the roof was an immense inverted plain of creamy white. Roli wrinkled his nose, the air carried a mixture of odd smells which defied analysis.

The companions spent little time on the broader scene however. As they crossed the threshold, a cage fashioned from bright bars of green light flicked into being in front and to either side of them. Turning, they found the doors had silently returned to bar their return. The beams of light were stacked well above head high and about a hand span apart.

“Hah!” Roli walked forward, lifted his hands toward the light beams, ready to climb them, they seemed so solid.

“No! Calistrope reached forward and jerked Roli roughly back. “No. Dangerous, look,” he picked up a piece of litter from the floor, a stick or some such and tossed it at the light bars. There was a flash, the stick fell through the bars in three pieces. “
Cutting light
. I know about it from somewhere.”

Roli gulped and stood with his back to the doors. “Thanks.”

Through the bars, beyond them, stood a tall pile of junkyard art in the form of a gangling human form. Whoever had built it had been overgenerous with arms, there were—four, counted Calistrope. He indicated the sculpture and what appeared to be various exhibits behind it.

“An exhibition hall, do you think?”

“Well,” Ponderos shrugged, a gesture which rippled all manner of muscles, “I suppose you could well be right Calistrope. But to what purpose?”

Calistrope shrugged as well, utilizing considerably less energy.

“You,” said a new voice, like the fall of a rusty bucket down a stony slope… “Are you the director of this party?”

Both Calistrope and Ponderos wheeled about and looked in all directions. “Who addresses us?” Calistrope said, becoming weighty in his speech and tone.

“I do. Up here.” Four clanging syllables.

The three of them looked upward and there, atop the sculpture a bright blue eye looked down at them from a battered cylinder which took the place of a head.

“Aha, I have your attention. So you, the one in dark blue, you are the leader, yes?”

“Yes. That is so.”

“Good,”—an empty can dropped onto a tin tray, “And now…”

One of the arms stirred, piston muscles flexed, too many elbow joints at different angles bent along its length. A metal clawed hand at its end reached through the light cage, its surface sizzling and suddenly bright where the light impinged. It caught hold of the unsuspecting Calistrope’s coat and hauled him aloft, over the wall and swiftly dropped him to the floor.

“Now, we go for examination.” Speech like the sound of unoiled hinges.

“Examination?”

“For my exhibition.”

“Which exhibition is that?”

The thing of many parts turned partly, a process of squeaks and groans as the upper part revolved on bearings at the waist. “Over there…”

As it rose to point, Calistrope ducked away from the hand which had released him. The creature was not to be fooled, in another instant a second arm, all metal tubing with telescopic sections shot out and caught hold of Calistrope’s arm in a gentle but immovable grip. Above him, the cylindrical head tilted and looked down, it turned slowly from side to side—well-oiled bearings, a low hum from a motor.

“That won’t do. Not at all. Now come, I wish to copy you.”

“Copy?” Calistrope was pulled along, willy-nilly.

“I told you, for my exhibition. I will build a simulacrum, very durable. Not like this,” the creature stopped for a long moment and considered its captive, tapped Calistrope on the chest. “Not this sort of thing. This sort of body dies.”

“Only when misused.”

“It dies,” insisted the other.

Calistrope was pulled along, a hairy ape-like arm with rough red hair sprouting along its length held his head close to the thing’s ribs. There was a sharp smell of corroding metals and the tang of lubricating oil mixed inextricably with the odor of sweat.