by Trish Telep
"You smell of the river," she whispered, reveling in the wild scent of industry and thick water. She meant it as a mere statement of fact, but Ever jerked back, chagrin pulling at his features. "Sorry," he whispered back.
Putting her hands on the sides of his face, Alys pulled him gently down. She skimmed her lips across his cheek and said into his ear, "I saw you fly."
All of Ever's body tightened, and he sank down to kneel on the step below her. "Do not tell anyone, Alys."
She let her knees bend, curling down beside him. Her hands slipped under his red and black jacket, resting over his heart. "I will keep your secrets, Ever, if you promise me one thing."
He let his own hands find her hips, and his fingers curled into the folds of her dressing gown.
Gasping for breath, Alys said, "Tell me everything."
* * *
As courtships go, the one shared by Alys and Ever was rather mundane. They attended well-chaperoned parties together, went for walks in the Oriental Market, had a picnic in the grass near the Ginger Step Fountains, and Ever touched her hand once when the mechanical awning outside Rucker's coffee bar unfurled just in time to block out the afternoon sun that streamed fresh between the Ostrelands Bank building and a solicitor's office.
But every third night, Ever flew across the Acrimony River to visit Titan, and when he returned home just before dawn, he would float up along the smooth outer wall of the Fire Tower and settle onto the balcony attached to Alys's room. There she waited with leftover tea and as much cake or bread as she could manage to get hold of without arousing suspicion, for, after a long night of performing for Titan, Ever tended to be quite famished.
Once he had eaten and gulped several cups of tepid tea, Ever would regale Alys with every detail he could recall about Titan, about the magic, the simulacrum--whose name, he'd learned, was Melea--and all the wonders inside Titan's Tower.
He told her of the way the woman-tree shook her glass leaves when he approached, and of the repellent, piercing noise made by the clockwork horse as it feasted upon scraps of copper and chrome.
He told her that although the City of Light assumed Titan to be ancient and so set in his wizarding ways that he was distrustful of the new electricity, the true reason Titan held tightly to the gas lamps in the Greenlight City was because he refused to consider allowing workers from the City of Light to cross into his streets and lay the necessary line. The gas lamps Titan could control, the electric lines, never.
He told her of Titan's quiet smile as the wizard led him to a shallow pool of clear water on the third visit. Of how Titan asked Ever to dip his finger in and feel the flow of liquid, instructed him to imagine the water running in threads similar to the flow of air. That, if only Ever might grasp the tendrils of water, he would be another step closer to mastering all the elements.
Ever, though, had not found that place inside his lower organs that had instinctually rescued him the night he fell off the Pearshire Cliffs. Titan, looming closer, had ordered Ever to close his eyes.
The next moment, Ever found his entire head--though he remained standing in the center of the marble floor--enveloped in water. He'd tasted it on his tongue and thrown his arms out in panic. Staring through a bubble of water, he saw Titan backing away. Ever held his breath, ran after the wizard, but quickly became disoriented. He could not breathe--and as he related this part of the tale, Alys grasped his hand and held it so tightly, as if she, too, could not breathe. Ever had sunk to his knees on Titan's floor, reaching through the water with his hands as if he might strip it away drop by drop. His eyesight turned gray and he heard a constant tick-tick-tick in his ears.
Then finally--finally--he opened his mouth and drank in the water. He thought of Alys, of never kissing her again, and of his parents who had not known his secret. He closed his eyes, thinking perhaps it would have been better if he'd fallen to his death two weeks ago instead of living through this hope and promise and new love, only to lose it all.
And then Ever realized he was not dead.
He breathed the water. It filled him as heavily as too-thick cigar smoke and pinched his lungs uncomfortably, but he did live.
The water bubble shattered, splashing to the marble floor. And Ever, on his hands and knees, lifted his head to stare at Titan. The wizard said, "Thus you prove your water-working."
Here, Alys shifted her body on to Ever's lap and kissed him and kissed him, as if she might find drops of water still in his mouth, as if she might breathe the water with him. Ever returned her enthusiasm, knowing all those long moments of terror and drowning had been worth it--not for the magic, but for the reward of Alys's passion.
* * *
Titan was distressed.
Although he had determined that the young wizard Ever was proficient with fire, air, water, animation, and even the sensing of ghosts, no matter what torture or impractical invention of stone or dirt was thrown at him, the boy had no gift with earth.
After nearly five weeks of effort, Titan concluded that despite this lack of Niobe's touch, and even in the face of Ever's rather unfortunately public position as the heir to the Fire Seat, he was, in fact, the only possible successor to Titan's own name.
And so, one night at the end of several hours of lessons on the weaving of water into ice, the wizard drew Ever to the table, and as Melea served them roasted hen and candied berries, Titan proposed a full apprenticeship.
Ever stopped eating, with his tiny fruit fork hovering between his mouth and the dish of cream. "You wish for me to what?"
Hands folded elegantly and resting on the edge of the heartwood table, Titan repeated himself. "For you to leave your life in the City of Light and join me here. I will make you into a Titan, boy, and raise you up to heights of magic of which you can barely dream."
"But, sir, I'm to be married in less than a week."
Titan did not move, except to lift one silvering eyebrow.
"I can't leave my life," Ever said.
"Because of marriage? Because of your family? I assure you, boy, being a Titan will serve this land and city far more precisely and well than political capital or a convenient marriage ever could."
Ever set the fruit fork into the dish. "I want to marry her."
"At the expense of all this?" Titan spread his hands. The clockwork horse stomped one silver-shod hoof. The mechanical birds swooping about fluttered their wings to catch light in a hundred shades of gold and copper.
Ever pushed away from the table. "Sir, I don't know what to say."
Standing, Titan gathered his power to him, drawing air and fire, earth and water into a swirling sphere that danced and spun around him. "Is this not," he said, in a voice soft and deadly, "more beautiful than any pair of simpering eyes or any smooth flesh?"
Caught in the sudden ferocity of magic, Ever stared at the colors, at the lights and sounds and shifting, tingling energy. It reflected in his muddy eyes, flashing demonic.
Titan pressed. "The elements will be your lover, holding your heart and soul and body more kindly than any woman. You will marry the universe if you study with me." The wizard could hear Ever's heart thrashing about, pumping hard and fast. Even when the boy slashed an arm through the air as if to banish Titan's magic, even when he turned and fled, Titan smiled.
The boy would return. He would look into the face of his intended and find her entirely lacking.
* * *
That dawn, as he climbed over the rail onto Alys's balcony, Ever's chest felt as though it had been bound in straps of iron. Shallow breaths were the best he could manage.
Alys, too, was having difficulty breathing, because Ever had never been so late before. The sun already touched her face, gilding her eyelashes and turning the raw green silk of her dressing gown into emeralds and light. It dazzled Ever the moment he saw her, and knowledge settled in his heart and freed his lungs from the iron grip.
She was more beautiful than any magic.
She rushed to him and he caught her hands, kissin
g her fingers again and again. "I love you, Alys," he said, in a quiet, resolute fashion, quite unlike the passionate and demonstrative declarations of love Alys had always imagined took place during secret rendezvous such as this. Yet she found she did not mind. His certainty was as calming as a healing ointment over red burns, and as it seeped into her bones, Alys shared the knowledge which Ever had so recently discovered: she would be with him for all time.
"I love you," she returned and kissed him more gently than she had before.
"But Alys," he said, holding her close, putting his cheek to her temple and closing his eyes against the dawn, "Titan wants me to abandon all this, to go live with him, to be his apprentice. It is the only way to know the magic."
"You will not abandon me," she murmured, a smile teasing at her lips.
"No, I won't. I can't." In Ever's voice were a hundred tiny pinpricks of longing, and Alys was not immune. She had seen him make fire dance, felt the swirls of his air-fingers tickling down her neck and up her ankles, listened to the fall of rain as he pulled water out of the sky to sprinkle over her face. She had borne witness to his first mechanical animation, a delicate copper rose he fashioned from flakes sawn off a clock in his bedroom, which he gave power with a kiss so that whenever she touched the third leaf from the bottom, the blossom opened full as if her face were the sun. And once, five nights ago, she had stood beside him the moment his body stilled with death and a passing ghost flitted through his eyes quicker than a thought. She could not ask him to give all of that up, any more than she was willing to forsake their marriage.
For Ever was the very opposite of boring.
"Take me with you," Alys Greentree of the Chenworth Niobes said. "We'll go together."
* * *
And so it was that Everest and Alys climbed onto the rail of her balcony off the Promethean Tower, held hands, and stepped into the sky.
* * *
"You have lovely eyes," was the only greeting which Melea the Simulacrum offered to Alys, leaning close to the Niobe girl and peering with her violet berry-eyes.
Alys curtsied, drawing her dressing gown about her with a regal temper, as though she was dressed in all the layers of finery a lady could afford. "And yours are more unique than any I've seen," she returned.
Ever drew his intended onward, up through the winding staircase built like a boring beetle's tunnel into the walls of the tower. They emerged into Titan's showroom, and though she had heard again and again of the wonders present, Alys sighed, brushing her hands over her mouth as if to collect the magic of the space and hold it close.
With his arm about her waist, Ever introduced her to the wizard, who sat in an ornately carved chair under the spreading branches of the glass tree. "Here is my wife-to-be, Titan. If I am to stay with you, she shall as well, for we would be one."
As Alys curtsied again, Ever gave up her whole name. Titan, who had been at war with himself over whether to accept this rather unprecedented turn of events, focused his attention solely upon the girl the moment it came to light that she was of the Niobes.
"You brought your own earth," Titan said, standing and weaving his fingers together before him. "I am well pleased."
Ever laughed. "Yes, I suppose that I did. Together, we are a complete Titan, are we not?" As the wizard nodded, Everslid his happy gaze to Alys's face. She, too, was surprised and pleased to think that her magic--her very being--so perfectly completed Ever's own.
"Very well." Titan paced toward them, opening his arms in a fatherly fashion. "Face each other closely, for there are vows I require of you."
Bodies touching from collar to toe, Ever and Alys obeyed. Their hands clasped, their lips hovered ready, as if they knew a kiss would seal this darker, more intimate marriage.
Neither noticed Titan's fingers flickering swiftly as he wove a net of air. He stepped close, and before the two could protest, flung the knotted strands of wind around them. Ever yelled and Alys struggled, but the magic was too strong as it tightened and pulled them against each other. "What are you doing?" Ever demanded.
"Marrying you," the wizard answered, and the words became a laugh that filled the space from marble floor to domed ceiling. The clockwork horse stomped and tossed its mane, the glass tree shook and moaned, the metallic birds dove and darted in spirals, clinking their wings together in a tinny cacophony. And Titan continued to laugh.
* * *
Alys felt it begin.
The magic pulled at her skin and cracked her bones. Her head lolled and despite Ever's cries and attempts to catch her, Alys's knees weakened and her fingers fell slack. But the web of air did not allow her to fall. It pressed her against him, and three tears squeezed their way out through her eyelashes. They did not drop onto her cheeks, however, but were drawn sideways inexorably toward Ever.
The tears splashed onto his face, and Alys's heart shuddered. Her skin became pink as blood rose to the surface, and all she could do was gasp his name before the pain of her disintegrating body claimed her.
Ever thrashed and reached with the new powers he had, but they were powers Titan had taught him, and they were no use against the old wizard.
There was not a thing Everest Aleksander the Younger could do as his body absorbed the tiny particles of his never-to-be wife.
* * *
Ever felt it end.
He stood alone as Alys's green silk dressing gown pooled at his feet, empty and flat.
A cool fire burned in his chest, flaring as his fire always had, but soothing his tight muscles and caressing the twisted pain gathered in his stomach. It filled him, and it even embraced him. It strengthened his knees and gave power into the bones of his hands.
Her.
Earth.
Niobe.
Ever lifted his head, and Titan's laughter cut off as the wizard saw three marks under the boy's right eye--green stains as if some artist had dropped ink onto the skin.
"You have given me her power," Ever said, in a quiet, resolute fashion.
Titan nodded. "You are a Titan now."
But Ever disagreed. "No, sir, you taught me that the title passes from one to the next. Never have there been two." The boy raised his hand, palm up, and from his skin a small tendril of a living tree sprouted. He did not notice the pierce of pain as it drew energy from his own blood.
"Even so," Titan said, nodding again and pleased at the boy's final graduation into all forms of magic. He intended to say more, but something caught in his throat. Something bulbous and thick, crawling up over his tongue.
Everest Aleksander the Younger smiled as a vine burst out of Titan's screaming mouth.
* * *
For five generations of wizards, Melea the Simulacrum had held the tower for her masters. As companion, as slave, as lover, as mother, and even as daughter. All these things she had been at one time or another, for Titan, ever since the day she'd been rescued by the first and given the freedom of her own will. She had used that will to remain at Titan's side, no matter whose side it was.
It was not without sorrow that she observed her current wizard being consumed by vines and flowers. But Melea had her own history with love, with needing and power and death, and she understood what it was to have the person you adored, whose heart you shared, destroyed by your own magic.
As Titan fell, curling on the marble-inlaid floor in a swarm of yellow and pink flowers, with thick and thin vines coiling like snakes in and out of his papery skin, Melea entered the showroom. She waited as the boy Ever sank down to his knees and closed his eyes. She waited as he shook, as he hugged himself and whispered the girl's name. As he pushed his fingers into this legs so hard they flashed white and ghostly.
A mechanical bird landed on the tangle of vines, poking at a pink flower with its silver beak. The clockwork horse pranced closer to the center of the room. Melea waited still.
Finally, the boy put his hands to the floor and pushed up. He stood, wobbling, and drew in a breath long and hard enough to suck the wind from all the
edges of the room. It curled through Melea's ash-bark hair and fluttered the tattered hem of her dress.
He saw her, and his eyes widened only slightly. In them, Melea saw all the colors of magic.
"Welcome home, Titan," she said.
* * *
As the sun set that night, Ever gathered his strength and in one tremendous burst, leapt to the Seventh Tower across the Acrimony.
He had been sitting at the crown of Titan's Tower through the long, bright day, and as the last rays of sun bled into the world, they caught the stars hanging from the clockwork universe that surrounded the central tower.
And a strange new thought slipped through his dull, tired mind: I want one of those stars.
Never before had he given much thought to them. They were bright and hung prettily to catch the light, but they were only glass. Only a simulation of the brilliant fires of heaven.
Yet now, the longing pinched at his breath and before he knew it, he'd flown over the river and beyond his family's home, to land upon one of the arching steel beams propping up a giant yellow planet with rings of blue and purple glass.
Below his feet dangled one of the skull-sized stars. The points gleamed, and Ever crouched. He touched his finger to one. It was sharp, but refreshingly so. The quick pain shot through his arm and tingled in all his bones. Alys would have loved this, he thought, and with a weaving of air and earth, he plucked the star from its binding of wire.
In his arms, it continued to catch the dying sun.
The Emperor's Man
BY TIFFANY TRENT
FOR A LONG time, I could not remember how I came to be in the Imperial House Guard. There was a vague sense of shame, a sense that I was possessed of a dark past. I felt that if anyone knew what I'd been, I would be ejected from my position, and it was all the more troubling because I myself could not remember. The fear that someone would discover my past to be every bit as horrible and incriminating as I imagined was great indeed.
