Clockwork Boys: Book One of the Clocktaur War

by T. Kingfisher

  A knife appeared in his hand. He waved it under Caliban’s nose, perhaps by way of demonstration. The former knight-champion stood his ground.

  I recognize a test when it draws steel on me. He sighed internally. I wonder how this will go down.

  “It occurs to me…” drawled Brenner, “that if you’re going to be watching our backs, it would be nice to know how good you are.”

  “You’ve been watching me for a few minutes now, unless I miss my guess,” Caliban said.

  “Chopping at shadows, while very pretty, is not quite the same thing.”

  “I suppose not. What do you propose, then?”

  Brenner lunged at him, his body unfolding like a preying mantis closing on an insect.

  Caliban had been expecting it, practically since the assassin had showed up, and he still barely managed to get out of the way.

  Dreaming God, he’s fast!

  He leapt backwards, swung his sword, saw it going directly at Brenner’s head, and pulled the blow with a brutal snap that left his wrists throbbing.

  Ow. Ow. Ow.

  “You idiot!” he yelled. “This is live steel! You can’t—if I hit you—”

  “I’d best make sure you don’t hit me then,” said the assassin cheerfully, circling on the balls of his feet. He was indeed presenting just a profile.

  Knife-fighter. Yep. Damn.

  “This is not a good idea, Brenner!“

  “It’s a great idea!”

  I’ve got a good bit of reach on him, particularly with the sword, for all the good it does. I know I’m stronger. And it doesn’t bloody well matter because whether I cut him or he cuts me, I lose. Damn, damn, damn.

  “Put some armor on, at least!”

  “Oh, quit whining, paladin. I’m hardly the first person you’ll have killed.”

  “If you’re trying to annoy me, you’re succeeding.”

  “Aww.”

  They closed again. Rather, Brenner closed, and Caliban dodged backward and swung his sword in an easily avoidable arc.

  “Surely you can do better than that.”

  “Yes, but I’d rather leave you both legs.”

  Brenner was getting bold now, realizing that the knight didn’t dare hit him. Caliban gritted his teeth and watched for an opening.

  “So which is it for our knight, eh? Do you think you’re going to live, like me, or are you waiting for your death, like our Slate?”

  Caliban kept his eyes on the man’s hands. Another knife had joined the first.

  “Hoping for a heroic death to wash away all those sins?”

  “Spare me the assassin’s psychology,” muttered Caliban, practically without hearing himself. There had to be an opening, he knew just what it would look like…

  It came. Brenner lunged again, a knife in each hand. Caliban slapped the leading blade away with a blow to his wrist, wished badly for gauntlets—I’d crush his bloody fingers if I had some decent gauntlets—and the assassin was coming up beside him now, hip to hip, and that was a bad place for a man with a knife to be, and if he turned, he could take his head right off with the sword, but not before he got a knife in the kidneys—

  “What in hell are you people doing?” Slate snarled from the doorway.

  Both men froze. Since there was quite a lot of momentum going on at the moment, this meant that Brenner, ducking under the sword, actually fell to one knee, arms extended around Caliban’s waist in a sort of lethal hug. Caliban tried to pull the sword up short one-handed. His wrist laughed at him. Something went poing! inside his arm, and his fingers opened. The sword jerked, wavered, fell, and landed—flat first, thank the gods—on Brenner’s shoulder.

  “Oof,” said the assassin.

  “Are you killing him or knighting him?” asked Slate, emerging from the door and pacing around the two of them as if they were a peculiar bit of statuary she’d discovered in the courtyard.

  “Um,” said Brenner. “We were sparring.”

  “Yes,” said Caliban. “Sparring.”

  They exchanged a brief look, unified in the face of a common enemy.

  “Is that what they call it? Do you need to get a room? Do you want me to go away, come back with a bucket of water, maybe?”

  “I think we’re good,” said Caliban, picking his sword off the assassin’s shoulder, very carefully.

  “I think so,” said Brenner, moving his knives delicately away from Caliban’s kidneys.

  “Good to know.” She glared at both of them. “I realize we’re all going to die, but I’d just as soon we do it there and not here.”

  “Awww….”

  Caliban saluted her with the sword. She snorted and stalked off.

  The men looked at each other.

  “Next time, maybe.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  As truces went, it wasn’t much, but Caliban figured he’d take what he could get.

  “I don’t suppose you could find some armor as easily as you found a blade?”

  “I could probably manage that,” said Brenner, and smiled.

  * * *

  “Madam Slate?”

  Slate looked up from her work. “You can skip the madam bit. It makes me sound like my mother.”

  “Was her name also Slate?”

  “No, but she was a madame.” Slate leaned back in her chair, enjoying the expression that Caliban was trying (and failing) to hide. “What do you need?”

  “I wish to attend a service at the temple,” he said.

  He was standing in parade rest again. The ridiculous demon-killing sword was slung over his back. He looked exceedingly martial and faintly ridiculous standing in the middle of a moderately priced inn room.

  “So do it,” said Slate. “I know I’m supposed to be in charge, but we haven’t gone anywhere yet. Go do whatever you want. Get drunk, get laid…go to the temple…err…whatever it is paladins do for fun.”

  He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then said, very patiently, “I cannot go to the temple of the Dreaming God.”

  “Oh?” And then, as realization dawned, “Oh! Right. They know you there, don’t they?”

  He nodded.

  “You, uh…” Slate started to make a hand gesture, realized that there was absolutely no way to express, You kinda murdered a bunch of people there, didn’t you? that would not come out as horrible, and let her hand drop. “Right.”

  “I know that you are skilled in…ah…clandestine work. I was hoping that you might be able to assist me. A disguise of some sort, perhaps.”

  A disguise. Right. Slate looked up at him. Six feet tall and some change, face the sort they stamped on coins, could probably model for a statue of the god of justice or courage or hitting things with swords. A disguise. Yeah.

  “I could dress you up as a really big leper,” she said. “Or put you in a packing crate and arrange for delivery during a service. That’s about as much as I’ve got in the way of disguises.”

  “I thought…perhaps a large hat…”

  Dear god, he’s serious.

  “It’s gonna take more than a hat,” said Slate. “Look, I’ll see what I can arrange.”

  He bowed his head. “Thank you.”

  “Yeah, well. Don’t thank me yet.”

  * * *

  She came back two hours later, tossed him an oilcloth cloak, and said “Get ready for the evening service.”

  He looked up at her, astonished. “Truly? So quickly?”

  “I’m talented.”

  “I have never doubted.”

  Slate fought back a sigh. She knew he had a sense of humor, sometimes even a particularly sardonic one, but it seemed to manifest very erratically. She was pretty sure that right at this moment, he was entirely serious.

  They stepped outside the inn together and into a downpour.

  “Here’s your disguise,” said Slate, pulling her own hood up over her head.

  “…I see.” Caliban glanced at the sky. He looked as if he was rethinking his assessment of her talent.
“Convenient. Do we simply not remove our cloaks at the temple?”

  “We can do better than that.”

  He fell immediately into guard position behind her. She felt like she had a very large dog at heel. People were probably giving them odd looks, but everyone caught out in the downpour were wearing cloaks and heavy hoods or broad brimmed hats of their own, so she couldn’t tell.

  She hailed a carriage, tried to climb in, had Caliban attempt to hand her in, gave him a look that practically steamed the rainwater off him, and settled herself inside without further incident.

  “Sorry,” he said, sitting opposite. “Were you a nun, courtesy would dictate…never mind.”

  “I am not a nun,” said Slate. “Incidentally, that’s the first time I’ve ever had to tell anyone that.”

  Caliban smiled briefly. “I was largely raised by them,” he said. “Please believe me that it is no insult.”

  “Mmm.”

  The carriage rattled to the temple square. Four temples stood opposite each other, one in each cardinal direction. The Dreaming God’s temple stood on the eastern side, pillars sheathed in marble, glinting even in the evening rain.

  Slate paid the driver. Caliban stood next to the door, looking slightly lost.

  “Fine,” muttered Slate, giving him her hand. “Don’t tell Brenner.”

  He gravely assisted her down onto the wet cobblestones. Slate wondered if treating her like a nun boded well for their working relationship.

  He did murder several of them, of course.

  Yes, well. People are complicated.

  She strode out across the square toward the temple, only pausing when she realized that her guard dog was apparently no longer at heel. Slate turned her head.

  He stood staring at the temple. It was too dark to see through the shadow of the hood, but he had an edge of his cloak in his hands and was wringing it with such force that she almost feared for the oilcloth.

  “Come on,” she said, walking back to him. “If you stand here, people are going to notice.”

  “I was a fool to think I could come here,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t go in there.”

  “Well, I already paid the bribe and I hate to waste money.”

  He blinked at her. She wondered if anything else she said would have gotten through to him. “Bribe? You bribed someone?”

  “Seat in the choir loft. I told him we’re wealthy donors looking to check out the acoustics, but he’s pretty sure we’re actually going to be screwing. Come on, you can have a breakdown once we’re out of the rain.”

  That got him moving. “One of the temple servants took money? But we could be possessed! Or—or—this is a threat to the security of the temple!”

  “Good thing it’s us, huh?”

  He stalked beside her all the way to the temple steps. The doors were open, revealing a glimpse of vaulted ceilings. Slate started up the steps, didn’t hear footsteps, turned and looked again.

  “Do we need to keep doing this?”

  Caliban shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling the hood lower over his face.

  “Good. Let me do the talking.”

  They went through the doors. Slate heard Caliban draw in a sharp breath, as if he’d been struck. She put her own hood back and went up to the short, pleasant-faced man standing at the door.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  “Lady!” he said. “Of course—yes—follow me.” He looked curiously at Caliban but asked no questions. “When you are finished, you may leave by these stairs. Please lock the door behind you. The loft is not open for evening services, but of course, in this case, an exception…”

  Caliban rumbled something wordless and angry.

  The temple servant looked doubtful for a moment. Slate took his hand, pressed a coin firmly into it, and said “Thank you for your assistance. I predict great things for so helpful an individual as yourself.”

  “Yes, of course…” He glanced at the coin in his palm and the doubt smoothed away completely. “Anything that I can do to be of assistance, of course!”

  “How much did you give him?” whispered Caliban, after the servant had closed the door behind them.”

  “Enough to buy two or three rounds of drinks.”

  “He sold out the temple’s security for so little?” For a moment, Slate was afraid that Caliban might charge out the loft and after the hapless young man.

  “Yes. Because if I’d given him too much, he’d know something was afoot. Too much money is as dangerous as too little; it means you want it too bad. Now sit down and commune or whatever it is you do. We have to leave before the service ends, if we want to be safe.”

  The choir loft ran the width of the temple, well above the level of most seating. There were wooden seats, all empty, and the lamps were unlit. Evening services did not require a full choir, merely a few singers down at ground level, behind the altar.

  The statue of the Dreaming God was almost at eye level with them, across the temple. It was smiling remotely, eyes closed. In one hand, it held a book and in the other a familiar-looking sword.

  Slate peered over the railing. The seats below were mostly empty and Slate thought the priestess standing beside the altar had a distinctly harried look

  None of this seemed to matter to Caliban. He sank down on his knees at the railing, eyes fixed on the distant figure in white, and seemed to become a statue himself.

  They had only a few moments to wait until the service began. A few more seats filled up, but not many. The Dreaming God’s church was wealthy because people were usually very, very grateful to have demons dealt with, but this did not always translate to attendance at their services.

  Slate, never much inclined to kneel, sat on a seat and tried not to fidget. Not that it matters. I suspect I could bounce a brick off Caliban’s head and he wouldn’t notice right now.

  She wished Brenner were here so that she could say something sarcastic to an appreciative audience. On the other hand, Brenner would have had so much to say about the situation that it was probably for the best. She didn’t want Caliban to try to strangle the assassin before they even got on the road.

  She shifted uncomfortably on the wooden seat and thought I should have brought a book.

  * * *

  Caliban would probably have noticed a brick to the head. In fact, he might have welcomed it.

  As the priestess’s voice swelled out around them—Sister Dominique, an uninspired speaker but rock solid on theology—Caliban felt the presence of his god.

  The Dreaming God was there. He was in His temple. He was looking down at His faithful. Caliban knew it. He believed it, not as an article of faith, but as he believed in sunrise and sunset and the turn of the seasons.

  He could feel the god. Words and incense and holy fire. Strength and certainty and the sword.

  He wanted that. He wanted that surety and that strength, that feeling of being in exactly the correct place. He wanted it more than he had ever wanted food or drink or a woman’s body, more than he had wanted freedom in his filthy little cell. He wanted to be whole.

  He had never minded the grim, hard, dirty work of demonslaying. He dealt with the sorrow and the pain and the atrocities that demons worked and the atrocities that paladins wrought trying to stop them. He had been a sword in the hand of his god, and that was all that he had ever asked to be.

  And here he was.

  And here the god was.

  And the hollow place in his soul did not fill up.

  The god was all around him and Caliban stood in the center of holiness and was not touched.

  His lips moved in time with Sister Dominique’s, saying the litany that he knew by heart, and nothing happened.

  One moment, he begged his god. One touch. One word. Please. I will never ask again. Just let me know that You have not forgotten me. I beg of You. Please.

  There was no answer. Only the demon, rotting down at the bottom of his soul.

  Perhaps there would never be an an
swer again. The god had made His choice. And Caliban, now, would have to live with it, for as long as he was able.

  He rose to his feet.

  “All right,” he said to Slate. “I had to know. Thank you.”

  She nodded. She asked no questions. He pulled the hood of his cloak up over his face and left the temple of the Dreaming God for the last time.

  Chapter Six

  The scholar turned up the next day. The meeting at the guardkeep was not precisely auspicious.

  Caliban, Brenner, and Slate walked to the guardkeep. Caliban was pleased that he could do so without a halt in his step. The flap of tarps in the marketplace elicited no more than a twitch.

  He was pretty sure that Brenner still saw the twitch, mind you.

  What Slate saw was anyone’s guess.

  The guards, who had looked through him the last time, saw a Knight-Champion this time—out of armor, but carrying the sword. They saluted. Brenner snickered. Caliban discovered that his jaw was aching and had to consciously stop gritting his teeth.

  The Captain of the Guard’s office was overcrowded, holding all three of them, the Captain, and the scholar.

  The scholar was a young man with an open, thoughtful face. His current disagreeable expression did not sit well on it.

  “Why are we bringing a woman?” he asked, peering down his nose at Slate. “I will not travel with one of their sex.”

  Slate’s jaw dropped. The Captain put a hand over his eyes.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Slate, clearly unable to believe what she had just heard.

  “It is granted,” said the scholar, flicking his fingers outward in an abbreviated gesture of blessing. “Go forth and sin no more. Captain?” He turned away. “I believe I asked—”

  Caliban and Brenner, acting with rare unity, reached out and grabbed one of Slate’s arms each, before anyone could learn what her sudden lunge in the scholar’s direction might mean.

  “Let me go,” she hissed. “I’ll kill him. The tattoo can only eat me once.”

  They exchanged looks over her head. Three days had not been enough for the men to establish more than an uneasy truce—the sparring had helped, but not much—but it seemed they’d just found another bit of common ground. Neither one let go.